lek
/lɛk/
lek noun: an aggregation of male animals for the purposes of courtship and display.
Noun (1)
lek (plural leks)
- An aggregation of male animals for the purposes of courtship and display.
- Each of the three displaying cocks occupies a small territory at the mating center of the lek.1975, Edward O. Wilson, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, figure caption, 2000, page 333
- Given that a combination of factors have "released" males from attending nests, why have some species organized their courtship bouts in leks, especially the tightly clumped leks that are typical of manakins and cocks-of-the-rock?1997, John Kricher, A Neotropical Companion, →ISBN, page 278
Verb
lek (third-person singular simple present leks, present participle lekking, simple past and past participle lekked)
- To take part in the courtship and display behaviour of a lek.
- Males in many lekking species have conspicuous morphological ornaments that may be targets of female choice, but male contest competition may also be involved.1994, M. B. Andersson, Sexual Selection, page 164
- The second reason lekking is so fascinating is because the males aggregate.2000, George Barlow, The Cichlid Fishes: Nature's Grand Experiment In Evolution, page 79
- To play.
- T’lads is lekkin i t’park.
Noun (2)
lek (plural leks or lek or leku or lekë)
- The currency unit of Albania, divided into 100 qindarka.
- With the loss of control by the Government over foreign exchange surrender requirements and the almost complete depletion of foreign exchange reserves, in early 1992 the official rate was further devalued to leks 50 = $1.1992, Mario I. Bléjer, Albania: From Isolation Toward Reform, page 56
- Enterprise shares are sold at voucher auctions in exchange for either immaterial privatization leks (through a bank transfer from the bidder's privatization lek account) or through privatization vouchers, which are submitted at the time of bidding.1997, Igor Artimiev, Gary J. Fine, Country Studies: Albania, Ira W. Lieberman, Stilpon S. Nestor, Raj M. Desai, Between State and Market: Mass Privatization in Transition Economies, page 178
Proper noun capitalized: Lek
Lek
- A river, the northern arm of the River Rhine in the Netherlands.
Examples of lek in a sentence
- Nevertheless, it does appear that many of the processes of mate choice and sexual selection described for bird and mammal leks also apply to anuran choruses.2007, Kentwood D. Wells, The Ecology and Behavior of Amphibians, page 352:
- Half a dozen of the thumbnail-size males lekked in a sunny glade.2010, Robert Michael Pyle, Mariposa Road: The First Butterfly Big Year, unnumbered page:
- Value Added Tax is another tax imposed on all enterprises with a yearly turnover of more than 2 million Leks.2003, Iraj Hoshi, Ewa Balcerowicz, Leszek Balcerowicz, Barriers to Entry and Growth of New Firms in Early Transition, page 253:
Forms of lek
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | leks |
| plural | lek |
| plural | leku |
| plural | lekë |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | leks |
| present participle | lekking |
| past participle | lekked |
| past | lekked |
Origin of lek
From Germanic roots meaning "play". In the biology sense, it comes specifically from Swedish lek (“child's play”), by means of Swedish leka (“to play”). The verb is first attested in English in 1871 and the noun at least as early as 1867.
From Albanian lek, named after Alexander the Great, whose name is often shortened to Leka in Albanian.
Words formed from lek
Words that rhyme with lek
44 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about lek
- What does lek mean?
- Lek means an aggregation of male animals for the purposes of courtship and display.
- How do you use lek in a sentence?
- Nevertheless, it does appear that many of the processes of mate choice and sexual selection described for bird and mammal leks also apply to anuran choruses.
- What part of speech is lek?
- Lek can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce lek?
- Lek is pronounced /lɛk/.
- What is the plural of lek?
- The plural of lek is leks.
Words near lek in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: lek (page history and authors); Lek (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-us-lek.ogg.
Cite this entry: “lek.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/lek. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.