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  1. eke love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. v. To supplement with great effort. Used with out: eked out an income by working two jobs.
  2. v. To get with great effort or strain. Used with out: eke a bare existence from farming in an arid area.
  3. v. To make (a supply) last by practicing strict economy. Used with out.
  4. adv. Archaic Also.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. To increase; enlarge; lengthen; protract; prolong.
  2. To add to; supply what is lacking to; increase, extend, or make barely sufficient by addition: usually followed by out: as, to eke out a piece of cloth; to eke out a performance.
  3. n. Something added to something else. Specifically— A short wooden cylinder on which a beehive is placed to increase its capacity when the bees have filled it with comb. [Scotch.]
  4. n. Same as eking, 2.
  5. Also; likewise; in addition.
  6. n. An added structure.
  7. n. In agriculture, an oblong stack.

Wiktionary

  1. v. To increase; to add to, augment, lengthen.
  2. n. obsolete An addition.
  3. n. beekeeping, archaic A very small addition to the bottom of a beehive, often merely of a few bands of straw, on which the hive is raised temporarily.
  4. adv. archaic Also.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. v. To increase; to add to; to augment; -- now commonly used with out, the notion conveyed being to add to, or piece out by a laborious, inferior, or scanty addition.
  2. adv. Obs. or Archaic In addition; also; likewise.
  3. n. rare An addition.

Etymologies

  1. From Middle English eken ("to increase"), from Old English īecan ("to increase"), from West Germanic aukjana, from Proto-Germanic *aukanan (“increase”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ewg- (“to increase”). Akin to Danish øge, Icelandic auka, Swedish öka and Latin augeō, Old English ēac ("also"). (Wiktionary)
  2. Middle English eken, to increase, from Old English ēcan; see aug- in Indo-European roots.Middle English, from Old English ēac, ēc. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

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synonyms (6)

Words with the same meaning

  1. increase
  1. augment
  1. also
  1. likewise
  1. addition
  1. als

rhymes (61)

Words with the same terminal sound

  1. Cheek
  2. Creek
  3. Dominique
  4. Greek
  5. Martinique
  6. Monique
  7. Mozambique
  8. Sikh
  9. Tariq
  10. Zeke
  11. antique
  12. batik
  1. beak
  2. beek
  3. belgique
  4. bespeak
  5. bleak
  6. boutique
  7. cacique
  8. cheek
  9. chic
  10. cleek
  11. clinique
  12. clique
  1. creak
  2. creek
  3. critique
  4. fleek
  5. freak
  6. geek
  7. greek
  8. leak
  9. leek
  10. meek
  11. misspeak
  12. mystique
  1. oblique
  2. peak
  3. peek
  4. physique
  5. pique
  6. reek
  7. respeak
  8. seek
  9. sheik
  10. sheikh
  11. shriek
  12. sleek
  1. sneak
  2. speak
  3. speake
  4. squeak
  5. streak
  6. teak
  7. technique
  8. tweak
  9. unique
  10. weak
  11. week
  12. weik
  1. wreak

reverse dictionary (9)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. eke
  1. eek
  1. eche
  1. eeke
  1. eik
  1. etch
  1. ik
  1. eking
  1. out

tags (2)

Free-form, user-generated categorization

  1. palindrome
  1. vcv

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Lists

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Comments

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  • gulyasrobi "eke" in Hungarian means: yoke Aug 1, 2012

  • hernesheir Come then my brethren, and be glad,
    And eke rejoice with me;
    Lawn sleeves and rochets shall go down,
    And hey! then up go we!
    - Francis Quarles (1592-1644), The Shepherd's Oracles. Eclogue xi, Song of Anarchus, i. Sep 19, 2009

  • bilby Thanks VO. Apr 18, 2008

  • reesetee Eek. Apr 18, 2008

  • vanishedone Plain 'eke':

    1. trans. To increase, add to, lengthen. Also absol. 'neither to eke nor to pair' (Sc.): neither to add to nor take from. Proverb, 'every little ekes'. arch. or dial.

    b. intr. To increase, grow. Obs.

    2. To add. Const. til, to. Also absol. Obs.

    Also 'eke up': 'to supply, repair (a loss). Obs.' Apr 18, 2008

  • bilby Is there a difference between eke and eke out? Apr 18, 2008

  • frindley Can't argue with that. (Don't change one word of your poem, yarb, I'm just stuck in the olden days before male salmon!) Apr 18, 2008

  • vanishedone OED, 2nd Ed.:

    '3. to eke out: a. to supplement, supply the deficiencies of anything (const. with); esp. to make (resources, materials, articles of consumption, etc.) last the required time by additions, by partial use of a substitute, or by economy.

    'b. To prolong (a speech or composition, an action) by expedients devised for that purpose; to contrive to fill up (a certain amount of space in writing, etc.).

    'c. To contrive to make (a livelihood), or to support (existence) by various makeshifts.'

    Interestingly enough, eke also turns out to be a dialect term (northern England) for a male salmon; cited once, 1887. Apr 17, 2008

  • yarb Is that really misuse? I reckon it's so widespread a usage as to constitute a shift in meaning. What does OED2 say?

    I'm just annoyed because I (mis)used it recently in a poem. Apr 17, 2008

  • frindley Idiom: "eke out a living", frequently misused to mean making a pretty poor living overall doing something that's badly paid, when in fact it refers to the making up of deficiencies. Merriam-Webster's example: "He eked out his income by getting a second job." Apr 17, 2008

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‘eke’ has been looked up 5753 times, loved by 3 people, added to 48 lists, commented on 10 times, and has a Scrabble score of 7. It's also a palindrome.