Other forms: slinks, slinking
To slink is to move away quietly, ashamed or guilty. Slink away, slink off, slinking out of the room.
The guilt is in the word — you slink away from something you did — and it nearly always takes away or off. The past tense is slunk. Slinky, meaning close-fitting and sinuous, comes from the same movement. Note that the Old English verb meant simply to creep or crawl, with no shame attached.
1verbslinkTo move away quietly, ashamed or guilty.
“After breaking the vase, the cat tried to slink away without anyone noticing.”
slink is a furtive movement.
Old English slincan means to creep or crawl. The sense of guilt is an English development.
Proto-Indo-European
*sleng-
Proto-Germanic
*slinkaną — to creep; crawl
Old English
slincan — to creep; crawl
Middle English
slynken
English, today
slink
Built from
From Middle English slynken, sclynken, from Old English slincan (“to creep; crawl”), from Proto-Germanic slinkaną (“to creep; crawl”), from Proto-Indo-European sleng-, slenk- (“to turn; wind; twist”), from Proto-Indo-European sel- (“to sneak; crawl”). Cognate with West Frisian slinke, Dutch slinken (“to shrink; shrivel”), Low German slinken, Swedish slinka (“to glide”). Compare also German schleichen (“to slink”). More at sleek.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA