auk
/oːk/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.27 in modern English
7
Scrabble Score
3
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "Further afield, these auks are also in dire straits: Norway has seen vertiginous crashes, with hundreds of thousands of adult puffins in the once-teeming colony of Røst struggling to fledge any chicks in recent years."
Etymology
From Icelandic álka, from Old Norse alka (“auk”), from Proto-Germanic *alkǭ, from Proto-Indo-European *h₁el- (“a kind of bird”). Cognate with Swedish alka (“auk”), Norwegian and Danish alke (“auk”), Swedish dialectal alla (“long-tailed duck”) (Clangula hyemalis, syn. Fuligula glacialis), Latin olor (“swan”), Ancient Greek ἐλέα (eléa, “marsh-bird”), Welsh alarch (“swan”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: álka, alka, *alkǭ, *h₁el-
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /oːk/
- British English: /ɔːk/