alk

alk is the archaic spelling of auk.

alk is the abbreviation of alkali.

alk is the abbreviation of alkaline.

Meaning of auk

auk (plural auks)

Any of several species of Arctic sea birds of the family Alcidae.
- Further afield, these auks are also in dire straits: Norway has seen vertiginous crashes, with hundreds of thousands of adult puffins in the once-teeming colony of Røst struggling to fledge any chicks in recent years.2018 June 20, Louise Tickle, The Guardian
Synonyms:

alcid

alkali (countable and uncountable, plural alkalis or alkalies)

One of a class of caustic bases, such as soda, soda ash, caustic soda, potash, ammonia, and lithia, whose distinguishing characteristics are dissolving in alcohol and water, uniting with oils and fats to form soap, neutralizing and forming salts with acids, turning to brown several vegetable yellows, and changing reddened litmus to blue.
- Alkalies may be defined as bodies which combine with acids so as to impair or neutralize their activity, and produce what are called salts. They are distinguished by properties the reverse of acids, and the two classes are generally looked upon as antagonist substances.1846, editorial staff, “CHEMISTRY”, in Scientific American, series 1, Volume 2, Issue 13, page 102
(US, Western) Soluble mineral matter, other than common salt, contained in soils of natural waters.

ALK (uncountable)

plural	alks

Adapted from Wiktionary: alk (page history and authors); ALK (page history and authors); auk (page history and authors); alkali (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “alk.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/alk. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.