Added 9 October 2026

walk

/wɔːk/ verb

In Latin: gradior, ambulō, vadō Wiktionary

verb Definition from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about walk at Wordnik → Where our words come from →

To move on the feet by alternately setting each foot (or pair or group of feet: in the case of some non-human animals with four or more feet) forward, with at least one foot on the ground at all times. Compare run.
To walk briskly for an hour every day is to keep fit.
To "walk free", i.e. to win, or avoid, a criminal court case, particularly when actually guilty.
If you can’t present a better case, that robber is going to walk.
Of an object, to go missing or be stolen.
If you leave your wallet lying around, it’s going to walk.

A trip made by walking.
I take a walk every morning.
A distance walked.
It’s a long walk from my house to the library.
An Olympic Games track event requiring that the heel of the leading foot touch the ground before the toe of the trailing foot leaves the ground.

From Middle English walk, walke, walken, walkyn, wolken (“to roll, toss, or turn; to walk; to move; to be living; to beat or full; to perform”), a conflation of Old English wealcan (“to move around; to revolve; to roll; to fluctuate; to discuss”) (ġewealcan (“to go, traverse; to roll”)) and Old English wealcian (“to curl, roll up, twist; to wrinkle”); both from Proto-West Germanic *walkan, from Proto-Germanic *walkaną (“to roll, toss, turn, wind; to walk, wander, wend; to full, trample”), *walkōną (“to roll about; to full”), from Proto-Indo-European *walg- (“to twist, turn, move”).