Word.ws English Dictionary

shanked

/ʃæŋkt/

shanked is the simple past and past participle of shank.

Adjective

shanked (not comparable)

  1. Having a shank.
    • 'It is the top of a pearl boot button undoubtedly, I should say,' pronounced the sergeant. 'One of those metal-shanked things that they wire into the boot nowadays. […]'1927, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], Max Carrados Mysteries
  2. Affected with disease of the shank or footstalk
    • Your Muscat Grapes are both shanked and scalded ; the latter can be easily remedied, but the former is more difficult.1904, William Robinson, The Garden

Meaning of shank

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

See all 29 meanings of shank

Words formed from shanked

Phrases with shanked

Words that rhyme with shanked

17 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about shanked

What does shanked mean?
Shanked means having a shank.
What is shanked the simple past and past participle of?
Shanked is the simple past and past participle of shank.
What part of speech is shanked?
Shanked is an adjective.
How do you pronounce shanked?
Shanked is pronounced /ʃæŋkt/.

Words near shanked in the dictionary

  1. Shankala
  2. Shankalla
  3. Shankar
  4. shankbone
  5. shankbones
  6. shanked
  7. shanked it
  8. Shankella
  9. Shankend
  10. shanker
  11. shankers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: shanked (page history and authors); shank (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:

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