Word.ws English Dictionary

shank

/ˈʃæŋk//ˈʃeɪ̯ŋk/

shank noun: the part of the leg between the knee and the ankle.

Noun

shank (plural shanks)

  1. The part of the leg between the knee and the ankle.
    • Edward I of England was nicknamed Edward Longshanks.
    • His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide / For his shrunk shank […]c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
  2. Meat from that part of an animal.
  3. (colloquial) A redshank or greenshank, various species of Old World wading birds in the genus Tringa having distinctly colored legs.
  4. A straight, narrow part of an object, such as a key or an anchor; shaft; stem.
    • The honest, rough piece of iron, so simple in appearance, has more parts than the human body has limbs: the ring, the stock, the crown, the flukes, the palms, the shank. All this, according to the journalist, is “cast” when a ship arriving at an anchorage is brought up.1904–1906, Joseph Conrad, chapter IV, in The Mirror of the Sea, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.; London: Harper & Brothers, published October 1906, →OCLC
  5. The handle of a pair of shears, connecting the ride to the neck.
  6. The center part of a fishhook between the eye and the hook, the 'hook' being the curved part that bends toward the point.
  7. A protruding part of an object, by which it is or can be attached.
    • This twist drill has a reduced shank so that it can be used even in a small chuck.
  8. The metal part on a curb bit that falls below the mouthpiece, which length controls the severity of the leverage action of the bit, and to which the reins of the bridle are attached.
  9. A poorly played golf shot in which the ball is struck by the part of the club head that connects to the shaft.
    • To a good golfer a shank is disgracefuller than being dead drunk or in jail.1953, Arnold Gingrich, The Esquire Treasury
  10. (shoemaking) The part of the sole beneath the instep connecting the broader front part with the heel.
  11. (shoemaking) A metal strip strengthening the waists of shoes. (Also shankpiece.)
  12. (slang) An improvised stabbing weapon, originally in prison, possibly from the strips of metal in shoes.
    • LBC's tryna blackball me / And tryna blame your boy for knife crime (Like, what?) / I don't use a shank, I got money in the bank / Man, I'd rather do a drive-by2017, Stormzy, Mura Masa, “Mr Skeng” (track 1), in Gang Signs & Prayer, performed by Stormzy
    • One of the shot callers' responsibilities was to control the shanks within the prison population—the crude homemade knives used for stabbing another prisoner.2019, Casey Diaz, Mike Yorkey, The Shot Caller […] , Emanate Books, →ISBN, page 76
    Synonyms:
    shiv
Show 7 more meaningsShow fewer meanings
  1. A loop forming an eye to a button.
  2. The space between two channels of the Doric triglyph.
  3. A large ladle for molten metal, fitted with long bars for handling it.
  4. (dated) The body of a type; between the shoulder and the foot.
  5. Flat-nosed pliers, used by opticians for nipping off the edges of pieces of glass to make them round.
  6. The end or remainder, particularly of a period of time.
  7. The main part or beginning of a period of time.
    • the shank of the morning
    • AMANDA: Going now? You're joking! Why, it's only the shank of the evening, Mr. O’Connor!1945, Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie, page 92

Verb

shank (third-person singular simple present shanks, present participle shanking, simple past and past participle shanked)

  1. (Ulster, archaic) To travel on foot.
  2. (slang) To stab, especially with an improvised blade.
    • Casey: You're being too honest. You gotta... tell 'em what they want to hear. You gotta lie, dude.
      Sam: I can't lie. I'm bad at it and I don't like it. What's the point?
      Casey: Well, imagine if you didn't like your boss at work.
      Sam: I do. I like Bob.
      Casey: I know, that's why I said "imagine". If...2018, Mike Oppenhuizen, “Pants of Fire” (1:53 from the start), in Geeta Patel, director, Atypical, season 2, episode 4, spoken by Casey and Sam (Jack Haven (credited as Brigette Lundy-Paine) and Keir...
  3. (slang) To remove another's trousers, especially in jest; to depants.
    Synonyms:
    debag, depants
  4. (transitive) To misstrike the ball with the part of the club head that connects to the shaft.
  5. (transitive, gridiron football) To hit or kick the ball in an unintended direction.
    • Marouane Chamakh then spurned a great chance to kill the game off when he ran onto Andrey Arshavin's lofted through ball but shanked his shot horribly across the face of goal.2011 September 28, Tom Rostance, “Arsenal 2 - 1 Olympiakos”, in BBC Sport
  6. (intransitive) To fall off, as a leaf, flower, or capsule, on account of disease affecting the supporting footstalk; usually followed by off.
    • the gerrnens of these swelled, and on four out of the six I have now got fine pods, above 1% inch in length, with the seeds externally visible; whereas the flower stalks of the many other flowers all shanked off.1861, Charles Darwin, Cause of the variation of flowers
  7. (transitive) To provide (a button) with a shank (loop forming an eye).
    • The system is suitable for shanking all kind of sewn buttons (jackets, coats, blouses, shirts, trousers).2000, The Indian Textile Journal (volume 110, issues 7-12)
  8. (shoemaking) To apply the shank to a shoe, during the process of manufacturing it.
    • I take those metal shanks, slide the backs of them in glue and make them lie down on the shoe-bottoms, […] Last week they ran a contest to see which shankers shanked fastest. I'm not embarrassed to say I beat them all.1986 March 6, "Factory Work" [Poetry, 147], quoted in 2009, Deborah Boe, The Girl of the Early Race: Poems, Gegensatz Press

Adjective

shank (comparative shanker, superlative shankest)

  1. (slang) Bad.

Proper noun capitalized: Shank

Shank (plural Shanks)

  1. A surname.

shank meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Sanskrit

shank in Tamil

தண்டு, கீழ்க்காலெலும்பு, உளிக்காம்பு, காம்பு, வடிவம், வடிவு

shank in Urdu

پنڈلی, ساق

shank in Bengali

lower part of the leg
ঠেং ṭheṅ

shank in Sanskrit

shank, shin
अष्ठीवत् aṣṭhīvát
shank
जङ्घा jáṅghā
More languagesFewer languages
shank in Sinhala
කෙණ්ඩය keṇḍaya
shank in Arabic
عُرْقُوب ʕurqūb
shank in Indonesian
sengkel
shank in Persian
قلم پا qalam-e pâ, سردست sardast

Examples of shank in a sentence

  • The unthreaded portion of the bolt's shank is called the grip.
  • As the crop gets bigger, the shank spacing on the cultivator will need to be adjusted accordingly.
  • He shanked him, now he's leaking.

All 35 example sentences with shank

Synonyms of shank

25 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of shank

Forms of shank

Noun
pluralshanks
Verb
third-person singular presentshanks
present participleshanking
past participleshanked
pastshanked
Adjective
comparativeshanker
superlativeshankest
Proper noun
pluralShanks

Plural of shank: shanks

Origin of shank

Inherited from Middle English sceonke, schank, schanke, shanke, schonke, sconke, sschanke, from Old English sċanca, sċeanca, sċeonca (“leg”), from Proto-West Germanic *skankō, from Proto-Germanic *skankô (“shank; thigh”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)keng- (“to hobble, limp; to tilt”). Cognates Cognate with West Frisian skonk (“leg”), Dutch schenkel (“shank”), German and Luxembourgish Schenkel (“thigh”), Danish skank (“shank; leg”), Norwegian Nynorsk skank, skonk (“thigh; foot”), Swedish skank, skånk (“leg”); also Cornish kamm (“pace, step”), Irish céim (“pace, step”), Manx keim (“degree, pace, stage, step”), Scottish Gaelic ceum (“pace, step”), Welsh cam (“pace, step”), Greek σκάω (skáo), σκάζω (skázo, “to burst, explode”), Bulgarian and Macedonian шега́ (šegá, “jest, joke; prank”).

Words formed from shank

Phrases with shank

Words that rhyme with shank

34 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about shank

What does shank mean?
Shank means the part of the leg between the knee and the ankle.
What is shank in Tamil?
Shank in Tamil is தண்டு, கீழ்க்காலெலும்பு, உளிக்காம்பு. See Shank meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is shank?
Shank can be a noun, a verb, an adjective or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce shank?
Shank is pronounced /ˈʃæŋk/.
What is the plural of shank?
The plural of shank is shanks.

Words near shank in the dictionary

  1. Shaniqua
  2. Shaniquah
  3. Shaniquas
  4. Shaniqwa
  5. Shanita
  6. shank
  7. shank it
  8. shank's mare
  9. shank's pony
  10. shank-bone
  11. shank-bones

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: shank (page history and authors); Shank (page history and authors); shank (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); shank (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); अष्ठीवत् (Sanskrit) (page history and authors); කෙණ්ඩය (Sinhala) (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-shank.ogg.

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