slink

/slɪŋk/

slink verb: to sneak about furtively.

Verb

slink (third-person singular simple present slinks, present participle slinking, simple past and past participle slunk or slinked or (uncommon) slank)

(intransitive) To sneak about furtively.
- As we do turn our backs
  From our companion thrown into his grave,
  So his familiars to his buried fortunes
  Slink all away, leave their false vows with him,
  Like empty purses pick’d; and his poor self,
  A dedicated beggar to the air,
  With his disease of all-shunn’d poverty,
  Walks, like contempt, alone.c. 1605–1608 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Tymon of Athens”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
- Back to the thicket slunk the guilty serpent.1667, John Milton, “Book IX”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished...
(ambitransitive) To give birth to an animal prematurely.
- a cow that slinks her calf

Noun

slink (countable and uncountable, plural slinks)

(countable) A furtive sneaking motion.
- His slink became a stride; he held his tail high; his eyes began to look more curious than scared. But he was still cautious.1998, Beppie Noyes, Mosby, the Kennedy Center Cat, page 30
The young of an animal when born prematurely, especially a calf.
The meat of such a prematurely born animal.
- It is an ascertained fact that young or “slink” veal very frequently gives rise to diarrhœa, more especially when that disease is epidemic.1868, Charles Alexander Cameron, The Stock-Feeder's Manual
(obsolete) A bastard child, one born out of wedlock.
(Scotland, UK, dialectal) A thievish fellow; a sneak.

Adjective

slink (comparative more slink, superlative most slink)

(Scotland) Thin; lean

Synonyms:

slunken

slink meaning in Bengali, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada

slink in Malayalam

sneak, creep, steal: ഒളിക്കുക, പതുങ്ങുക, ഒളിച്ചുപോകുക, ഇഴയുക, എഴയുക, പാളുക

slink in Kannada

ನುಸುಳಿಕೊಳ್ಳು, ಜಾರಿಕೊಳ್ಳು, ಕದ್ದುಹೋಗು, ತಲೆಮರೆಸಿ ಓಡು

Examples of slink in a sentence

The leaving us was just a feint; / Back here to London did he slink, / And now works on without a wink / Of sleep, and we are on the brink1842, Robert Browning, Waring:
Joseph Poorgrass, in the background, twitched, and his lips became dry with fear of some terrible consequences as he saw Bathsheba summarily speaking, and Henery slinking off to a corner.1874, Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Smith, Elder & Co., […], →OCLC:
Far away I saw a gaunt cat slink crouchingly along a wall, but traces of men there were none.1895–1897, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, “The Stillness”, in The War of the Worlds, London: William Heinemann, published 1898, →OCLC, book II...
As if ashamed of its appearance, it slinks into Platform 2 (instead of Platform 1, where it was expected).2020 December 2, Paul Bigland, “My weirdest and wackiest Rover yet”, in Rail, page 67:

All 17 example sentences with slink

Synonyms of slink

slunken

Forms of slink

Verb
third-person singular present	slinks
present participle	slinking
past participle	slunk
past	slunk
past participle	slinked
past	slinked
past participle uncommon	slank
past uncommon	slank
Noun
plural	slinks
Adjective
comparative	more slink
superlative	most slink

Past tense of slink: slunk or slinked

Origin of slink

From Middle English slynken, sclynken, from Old English slincan (“to creep; crawl”), from Proto-Germanic *slinkaną (“to creep; crawl”), from Proto-Indo-European *sleng-, *slenk- (“to turn; wind; twist”), from Proto-Indo-European *sel- (“to sneak; crawl”). Cognate with West Frisian slinke, Dutch slinken (“to shrink; shrivel”), Low German slinken, Swedish slinka (“to glide”). Compare also German schleichen (“to slink”). More at sleek.

Words formed from slink

Phrases with slink

slink butchers

Words that rhyme with slink

35 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about slink

What does slink mean?: Slink means to sneak about furtively.
What is slink in Bengali?: Slink in Bengali is চুপিসারে সরে পড়া, গুটিগুটি চলা. See Slink meaning in Bengali.
How do you use slink in a sentence?: The leaving us was just a feint; / Back here to London did he slink, / And now works on without a wink / Of sleep, and we are on the brink
What part of speech is slink?: Slink can be a verb, a noun or an adjective.
How do you pronounce slink?: Slink is pronounced /slɪŋk/ (UK).
What is the past tense of slink?: The past tense of slink is slunk.

Words near slink in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: slink (page history and authors); slink (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); జుణుగు (Telugu) (page history and authors); slink (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); slink (Kannada Wiktionary) (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: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-slink.wav.

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