English

Adjective

lank ‎(comparative lanker, superlative lankest)

1. Slender or thin; not well filled out; not plump; shrunken; lean.
   • Meager and lank with fasting grown. - Jonathan Swift.
   • Who would not choose ... to have rather a lank purse than an empty brain? - Isaac Barrow.
   • Blacks in the fields, lank and stooped, their fingers spiderlike among the bolls of cotton. - 1985 McCarthy, Blood Meridian, chapter 1.
2. (of hair) Straight and flat; thin and limp. (often associated with being greasy)
   • Lank hair, long, thin hair. - Thomas Babington Macaulay
3. (obsolete) languid; drooping.
   • Who, piteous of her woes, reared her lank head. - John Milton

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Macaulay to this entry?)

Translations

Verb

lank ‎(third-person singular simple present lanks, present participle lanking, simple past and past participle lanked)

1. (rare) To become lank; to make lank.

Anagrams

• klan, Klan

Central Franconian

Alternative forms

• lang (more recent variant, now widespread)

Etymology

From Old High German lang.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /laŋk/

Adjective

lank ‎(masculine lange, feminine lang, comparative länger, superlative et längste)

1. (most dialects) long

   Ich hann lang Zeck op dich jewaat.

   I’ve waited a long time for you.

Lower Sorbian

Etymology

lan +‎ -k

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈlaŋk]

Noun

lank m

1. diminutive of lan

Declension