walk.
To move on the feet by alternately setting each foot (or pair or group of feet, in the case of animals with four or more feet) forward, with at least one foot on the ground at all times. Compare run.
Meaning & usage
To move on the feet by alternately setting each foot (or pair or group of feet, in the case of 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.
To walk off the field, as if given out, after the fielding side appeals and before the umpire has ruled; done as a matter of sportsmanship when the batsman believes he is out.
To travel (a distance) by walking.
I walk two miles to school every day.
The museum’s not far from here – you can walk it.
To take for a walk or accompany on a walk.
I walk the dog every morning.
Will you walk me home?
To appear in a parade.
Those who wish to walk in the parade this fall should sign up now.
To allow a batter to reach base by pitching four balls.
To reach base by being pitched four balls.
Of an object or machine, to move by shifting between two positions, as if it were walking.
If we don't bolt the washing machine down, it's going to walk across the room.
To cause something to move in such a way.
I carefully walked the ladder along the wall.
To full; to beat (cloth) to give it the consistency of felt.
To traverse by walking (or analogous gradual movement).
I walked the streets aimlessly.
Debugging this computer program involved walking the heap.
To operate the left and right throttles of (an aircraft) in alternation.
To leave, resign.
If we don't offer him more money he'll walk.
To push (a vehicle) alongside oneself as one walks.
To behave; to pursue a course of life; to conduct oneself.
To go restlessly about; said of things or persons expected to remain quiet, such as a sleeping person, or the spirit of a dead person.
To be in motion; to act; to move.
To put, keep, or train (a puppy) in a walk, or training area for dogfighting.
To move (a guest) to another hotel if their confirmed reservation is not available on the day of check-in.
To tend to move radially while feeding axially, whether tending toward on-center or tending toward off-center. Walking may be desirable (e.g., when a reamer walks into concentricity) or undesirable (e.g., when a twist drill walks into eccentricity.)
To pull (a trigger) rapid-fire by alternating two fingers.
Where this word comes from
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”). Cognates Cognate with Bavarian woikn (“to full, tan; to knead dough; to roll out dough”), Cimbrian balchan (“to beat, hit, strike”), Dutch zwalken (“to walk around”), German walken (“to full, tan, walk; to knead; to beat up”), Danish valke (“to full, walk, waulk”), Faroese válka (“make dirty; stir up dirt”), Swedish valka (“to full cloth, to waulk”); also Latin valgus (“bent out; bandy, bow-legged”). More at vagrant and whelk. Doublet of waulk.
A trip made by walking.
I take a walk every morning.
go on a walk
A distance walked.
It’s a long walk from my house to the library.
The precinct is about ten minutes’ walk, straight ahead, so you can’t miss it.
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.
A manner of walking; a person's style of walking.
The Ministry of Silly Walks is underfunded this year.
A path, sidewalk/pavement or other maintained place on which to walk.
A person's conduct or course in life.
people of different ages and walks
A situation where all players fold to the big blind, as their first action (instead of calling or raising), once they get their cards.
An award of first base to a batter following four balls being thrown by the pitcher; known in the rules as a "base on balls".
The pitcher now has two walks in this inning alone.
In coffee, coconut, and other plantations, the space between them.
An area of an estate planted with fruit-bearing trees.
A place for keeping and training puppies for dogfighting.
An enclosed area in which a gamecock is confined to prepare him for fighting.
A sequence of alternating vertices and edges, where each edge's endpoints are the preceding and following vertices in the sequence. Compare path, trail.
Something very easily accomplished; a walk in the park.
A cheque drawn on a bank that was not a member of the London Clearing and whose sort code was allocated on a one-off basis; they had to be "walked" (hand-delivered by messengers).
Where this word comes from
From Middle English walc, walk, walke, from Old English *wealc (as in Old English wealcspinl) and ġewealc (“rolling, turning; motion, surging”), from Proto-Germanic *walką. Cognate with Icelandic volk (“difficulty, hardship, trouble”).
Try it on your idea.
walk has 4 characters. Say it out loud, try it alongside a description of your project, and see whether its meaning fits what you want to create.
These are naming prompts. Meanings and pronunciation can vary; existing brand and domain uses have not been checked.
Explore the name generatorA word with a source.
Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.