Word.ws English Dictionary

elk

/ɛlk/

elk noun: any of the subspecies of the moose (Alces alces, the largest member of the deer family, alternatively named Eurasian elk to avoid confusion with the wapiti), that occurs only in Europe and Asia. Also the obsolete form of elke.

elk: any of the subspecies of the moose (Alces alces, the largest member of the deer family,...
Image: CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

elk (plural elk or elks)

  1. (Commonwealth, Europe) Any of the subspecies of the moose (Alces alces, the largest member of the deer family, alternatively named Eurasian elk to avoid confusion with the wapiti), that occurs only in Europe and Asia.
    Synonyms:
    moose
  2. (Canada, US) Common wapiti (Cervus canadensis), the second largest member of the deer family, once thought to be a subspecies of red deer.
    Synonyms:
    wapiti
  3. (British, India) Sambar (Cervus unicolor).
    • In a narrow defile […] a male elk, (cervus alces, Lin.) of noble appearance, followed by twenty-two females, passed majestically under their platform, each as large as a common-sized horse.1813, James Forbes, Oriental Memoirs, page 281

Noun (2) capitalized: Elk

Elk (plural Elks)

  1. A member of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, an American fraternal order.

Noun (3) capitalized: Elk

Elk (plural Elks)

  1. (informal) An Acorn Electron computer.
    • Even modified it so that it would work with the differently ordered registers of an Electron. Never did get it working fully on the Elk, I think my Elk with Mode 7 box caused a problem with the use of IRQ workspace, system speed was also a factor IIRC.1999, Lionel Smith, “Reading old DOS discs on a BBC”, in comp.sys.acorn.misc (Usenet)
    • I'm pretty certain I remember seeing it on a price list when most BBC and Elk games had to be mail ordered (I think Impact was the mail order company - they also produced games like Zenon and Clogger).2003, Gareth Williams, “What is Electron Elite V2?”, in alt.fan.elite (Usenet)

Proper noun (1) capitalized: Elk

Elk

  1. (Canadian) A team member of the Canadian Football League's Edmonton Elks (formerly known as the Eskimos).

Proper noun (2) capitalized: Elk

Elk (plural Elks)

  1. A surname from Dutch.

Proper noun (3) capitalized: ELK

ELK

  1. (abbreviation, acronym) Acronym of Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana.
    • Of course, ELK doesn't come without operational burden.2017, Evi Nemeth, Garth Snyder, Trent R. Hein, Ben Whaley, Dan Mackin, UNIX and Linux System Administration Handbook, Addison-Wesley Professional, →ISBN

Also used as

elk is also the obsolete form of elke.

elk meaning in Hindi, Marathi, Urdu and Bengali

elk in Hindi

एल्क, एलक

elk in Marathi

एल्क

elk in Urdu

ایلک

elk in Bengali

এল্ক
More languagesFewer languages
elk in Telugu
ఎల్క్
elk in Kannada
ಎಲ್ಕ್
elk in Gujarati
એલ્ક, એલક
elk in Odia
ଏଲ୍କ୍
elk in Nepali
एल्क, एल्क्

Examples of elk in a sentence

  • Vermont will open elk hunting season next week.
  • The bear raised his head to the sound, then moved toward the elk to protect its kill.
  • Palmer parted the towering saltgrass and pickleweed downwind of the elk.

All 19 example sentences with elk

Synonyms of elk

Forms of elk

Noun
pluralelk
pluralelks
pluralElks
Proper noun
pluralElks

Plural of elk: elk or elks

Origin of elk

From Middle English elk, from Old English eolc, eolh (“elk”), from Proto-West Germanic *elh, from Proto-Germanic *elhaz, *algiz (“elk”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁élḱis, *h₁ólḱis, variant of *h₁elh₁én, from *h₁el- (“deer”). See also Low German Elk, German Elch, Danish elg, Norwegian elg, Swedish älg; also Polish łoś, Russian лось (losʹ), Vedic Sanskrit ऋश्य (ṛ́śya, “antelope”); also German Elen, Tocharian A yäl, Tocharian B ylem (“gazelle”), Lithuanian élnis (“stag”), Armenian եղնիկ (eġnik, “doe, hind”). Doublet of Elhaz.

Perhaps a reduced form of Dutch van Elk.

Words formed from elk

Phrases with elk

Words that rhyme with elk

Questions about elk

What does elk mean?
Elk means any of the subspecies of the moose (Alces alces, the largest member of the deer family, alternatively named Eurasian elk to avoid confusion with the wapiti), that occurs only in Europe and Asia.
What is elk in Hindi?
Elk in Hindi is एल्क, एलक. See Elk meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is elk?
Elk can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce elk?
Elk is pronounced /ɛlk/.
What is the plural of elk?
The plural of elk is elk.

Words near elk in the dictionary

  1. Elizondos
  2. elizor
  3. elizors
  4. Eljane
  5. Eljas
  6. elk
  7. Elk City
  8. Elk County
  9. Elk Creek
  10. Elk Grove
  11. Elk Grove Village

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: elk (page history and authors); Elk (page history and authors); ELK (page history and authors); elk (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); elk (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); elk (Urdu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); elk (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); elk (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); elk (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); elk (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); elk (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); elk (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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-us-elk.ogg.

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