different between lurk vs lurking

English

Etymology

From Middle English lurken, from Old Norse lurka (“to sneak away, go slowly”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /l??k/
• (General American) enPR: lûrk, IPA^(key): /l?k/
• Rhymes: -??(?)k

Verb

lurk (third-person singular simple present lurks, present participle lurking, simple past and past participle lurked)

1. To remain concealed in order to ambush.
2. To remain unobserved.
   • 1898, J. Meade Falkner, Moonfleet Chapter 4

     Thus my plight was evil indeed, for I had nothing now to burn to give me light, and knew that 'twas no use setting to grout till I could see to go about it. Moreover, the darkness was of that black kind that is never found beneath the open sky, no, not even on the darkest night, but lurks in close and covered places and strains the eyes in trying to see into it.

3. To hang out or wait around a location, preferably without drawing attention to oneself.
   • 2005, Plato, Sophist. Translation by Lesley Brown. 235c.

     if we find the sophist lurking, we must round him up by royal command of the argument

4. (Internet) To read an Internet forum without posting comments or making one's presence apparent.
5. (Britain, naval slang, transitive) To saddle (a person) with an undesirable task or duty.
   • 2015, Andrew Gordon, The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command

     As junior dogsbody, he was lurked with this mission.

Derived terms

• lurker
• lurkingly

Translations

Noun

lurk (plural lurks)

1. The act of lurking.
   • 1921: George Colby Borley, The Lost Horizon

     There were enemies on the lurk and time was against him.

   • 1955: John Maxwell Edmonds Longus, Daphnis et Chloe

     […] barked furiously and made at him as at a wolf, and before he could wholly rise from the lurk because of the sudden consternation, […]

2. (obsolete) A swindle.

Translations

References

• (a swindle): 1873, John Camden Hotten, The Slang Dictionary

English

Verb

lurking

1. present participle of lurk

Noun

lurking (plural lurkings)

1. The act of one who lurks.
   • 2011, Christine Chism, Alliterative Revivals (page 99)

     In these hunting scenes, as many critics have noted, the reversals, negotiations, lurkings, and evasions between hunter and prey mirror and frame the bedroom strategies of the Lady and Gawain.