neck
/ˈnɛk/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.63 in modern English
10
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
The corresponding part in some other anatomical contexts.
noun
The slender tubelike extension atop an archegonium, through which the sperm swim to reach the egg.
noun
The extension of any stringed instrument on which a fingerboard is mounted
Example Sentences
- "Giraffes have long necks."
- "Mother, help me, there's a head attached to my neck and I'm in it."
- "Archegonia are surrounded early in their development by the juvenile perianth, through the slender beak of which the elongated neck of the fertilized archegonium protrudes."
- "a neck forming the journal of a shaft"
- "to risk one's neck; to save someone's neck"
- "Shorty throw neck like a geese She make me speak Portuguese"
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Germanic *hnakkô Proto-West Germanic *hnakkō Old English hnecca Middle English nekke English neck From Middle English nekke, nakke, from Old English hnecca, *hnæcca (“neck, nape”), from Proto-West Germanic *hnakkō, from Proto-Germanic *hnakkô (“nape, neck”), from Proto-Indo-European *knog-, *kneg- (“back of the head, nape, neck”). Cognate with Scots nek (“neck”), North Frisian neek, neeke, Nak (“neck”), Saterland Frisian Näkke (“neck”), West Frisian nekke (“neck”), Dutch nek (“neck”), German Low German Nack (“neck”), German Nacken (“nape of the neck”), Danish nakke (“neck”), Swedish nacke (“nape of the neck”), Icelandic hnakki (“neck”), Tocharian A kñuk (“neck, nape”). Possibly a mutated variant of *kneug/k (compare Old English hnocc (“hook, penis”), Welsh cnwch (“joint, knob”), Latvian knaūķis (“dwarf”). Doublet of nek. More at nook. Displaced halse (“neck, throat”) and swire (“neck”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: nekke, hnecca, *hnakkō, *hnakkô, *knog-, nøkke
Usage
- Informal
- Slang
- Transitive verb
- American usage
- Intransitive verb