Other forms: skulking, skulks
To skulk is to hide and move about with bad intentions. Keeping to the shadows, and not wanting to be seen.
The word assumes guilt, which is what separates it from lurk, and lurk from simply waiting. Somebody skulking in a doorway is up to something. It takes about, around or in. It also carries cowardice, since skulking away means slinking off rather than facing something. It is a good word for fiction and rare in ordinary speech, and a group of foxes is traditionally called a skulk.
1verbskulkTo move or hide furtively, especially with bad intent.
“Two men were skulking by the back gate.”
Middle English
sculke, skulke, skulken
English, today
skulk
From Middle English sculke, skulke, skulken, of gmq - origin; compare Danish skulke (“shirk”), Swedish skolka (“play truant”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Man Called Ove, Ways of Moving
First appears in chapter 3 of A Man Called Ove.
Practise this word