caulk
/kɔːk//kɔk/
caulk noun: caulking. Also the alternative form of calk.
Noun
caulk (countable and uncountable, plural caulks)
- Caulking.
- A composition of vehicle and pigment used at ambient temperatures for filling/sealing joints or junctures, that remains elastic for an extended period of time after application.
- A short sleep; a nap.
- […] & we went for a long walk & fatigued ourselves so that I, for one, took a caulk in the afternoon.1961, Oswald Frewen, Sailor's Soliloquy, page 242
Verb
caulk (third-person singular simple present caulks, present participle caulking, simple past and past participle caulked)
- To drive oakum into the seams of a ship's wooden deck or hull to make it watertight.
- [W]e might be disturbed during the night by an order being given to "go about," and by hearing in the quiet hours of the morning the familiar inquiry of "How's her head?" Mine often ached with the din of the men caulking all day long!1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 112
- To apply caulking to joints, cracks, or a juncture of different materials.
- To copulate.
- To take a short sleep; to nap.
- There was the goggle-eyed daughter a blowing the Grampus [throwing a bucket of water upon a person] with the platter-faced planter, whenever he caulked upon deck; […]1829, William Nugent Glascock, Sailors and Saints: Or Matrimonial Manœvres, page 179
- […] and as sleep is about the only thing there is for a sailor at sea to get in the way of recreation, he prizes it accordingly and gets all he can. It is technically called "caulking," and a man will brag of having "caulked" the whole four hours of his watch on deck […]1897, Herbert Elliott Hamblen, William Stone Booth, On Many Seas: The Life and Exploits of a Yankee Sailor, page 40
Proper noun capitalized: Caulk
Caulk (plural Caulks)
- A surname.
Also used as
caulk is also the alternative form of calk.
caulk meaning in Malay and Myanmar
caulk in Malay
- substance for filling and/or sealing
- pakal
caulk in Myanmar
- to seal joints with caulk
- လိန်းထေး lin:hte:, လိန်းဖာ lin:hpa, ထေး hte:
Forms of caulk
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | caulks |
| alternative form | calk |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | caulks |
| present participle | caulking |
| past participle | caulked |
| past | caulked |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Caulks |
Origin of caulk
From Old Northern French cauquer, from Late Latin calicāre (“to fill in with limestone, caulk”), derived from calx (“limestone, chalk”). Related to calx, cauk, chalk, and calculus.
Words formed from caulk
Words that rhyme with caulk
Questions about caulk
- What does caulk mean?
- Caulk means caulking.
- What is caulk in Malay?
- Caulk in Malay is pakal. See Caulk meaning in Malay.
- What part of speech is caulk?
- Caulk can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce caulk?
- Caulk is pronounced /kɔːk/ (UK).
- What is the plural of caulk?
- The plural of caulk is caulks.
Words near caulk in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: caulk (page history and authors); Caulk (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:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-gb-caulk.ogg, en-us-caulk.ogg.
Cite this entry: “caulk.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/caulk. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.