different between stalk vs catperson

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: stôk, IPA^(key): /st??k/
• (US) enPR: stôk, IPA^(key): /st?k/
• (cot–caught merger) IPA^(key): /st?k/
• Homophone: stork (non-rhotic accents), Homophone: stock (in accents with the cot-caught merger)
• Rhymes: -??k

Etymology 1

From Middle English stalke, diminutive of stale (“ladder upright, stalk”), from Old English stalu (“wooden upright”), from Proto-Germanic *stal? (compare Middle Low German stal, stale (“chair leg”)), variant of *steluz, *stel?n (“stalk”) (compare Old English stela, Dutch steel, German Stiel, Danish stilk), from Proto-Indo-European *stel- (compare Albanian shtalkë (“crossbeam, board used as a door hinge”), Welsh telm (“frond”), Ancient Greek ?????? (stélos, “beam”), Old Armenian ????? (ste?n, “trunk, stalk”)).

Noun

stalk (plural stalks)

1. The stem or main axis of a plant, which supports the seed-carrying parts.

   • Three chairs of the steamer type, all maimed, comprised the furniture of this roof-garden, with […] on one of the copings a row of four red clay flower-pots filled with sun-baked dust from which gnarled and rusty stalks thrust themselves up like withered elfin limbs.

2. The petiole, pedicel, or peduncle of a plant.
3. Something resembling the stalk of a plant, such as the stem of a quill.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Grew to this entry?)

4. (architecture) An ornament in the Corinthian capital resembling the stalk of a plant, from which the volutes and helices spring.
5. One of the two upright pieces of a ladder.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Chaucer to this entry?)

6. (zoology)
   1. A stem or peduncle, as in certain barnacles and crinoids.
   2. The narrow basal portion of the abdomen of a hymenopterous insect.
   3. The peduncle of the eyes of decapod crustaceans.
7. (metalworking) An iron bar with projections inserted in a core to strengthen it; a core arbor.

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English stalken, from Old English *stealcian (as in bestealcian (“to move stealthily”), stealcung (“stalking”)), from Proto-Germanic *stalk?n? (“to stalk, move stealthily”) (compare Dutch stelkeren, stolkeren (“to tip-toe, tread carefully”), Danish stalke (“to high step, stalk”), Norwegian dialectal stalka (“to trudge”)), from *stalkaz, *stelkaz (compare Old English stealc (“steep”), Old Norse stelkr, stjalkr (“knot (bird), red sandpiper”)), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)telg, *(s)tolg- (compare Middle Irish tolg (“strength”), Lithuanian stalgùs (“stiff, defiant, proud”)).

Alternate etymology connects Proto-Germanic *stalk?n? to a frequentative form of *stelan? (“to steal”).

Verb

stalk (third-person singular simple present stalks, present participle stalking, simple past and past participle stalked)

2. (transitive) To approach slowly and quietly in order not to be discovered when getting closer.
   • But they had already discovered that he could be bullied, and they had it their own way; and presently Selwyn lay prone upon the nursery floor, impersonating a ladrone while pleasant shivers chased themselves over Drina, whom he was stalking.

3. (transitive) To (try to) follow or contact someone constantly, often resulting in harassment.^Wp

4. (intransitive) To walk slowly and cautiously; to walk in a stealthy, noiseless manner.
5. (intransitive) To walk behind something, such as a screen, for the purpose of approaching game; to proceed under cover.
   • 1625, Francis Bacon, Apophthegms

     The king […] crept under the shoulder of his led horse; […] "I must stalk," said he.

   • 1612, Michael Drayton, Poly-Olbion

     One underneath his horse, to get a shoot doth stalk.

Conjugation

Translations

Noun

stalk (plural stalks)

1. A particular episode of trying to follow or contact someone.
2. The hunting of a wild animal by stealthy approach.
   • 1885, Theodore Roosevelt, Hunting Trips of a Ranchman

     When the stalk was over (the antelope took alarm and ran off before I was within rifle shot) I came back.

Related terms

• stalker

References

Etymology 3

Attested 1530 in the sense "to walk haughtily", perhaps from Old English stealc (“steep”), from Proto-Germanic *stelkaz, *stalkaz (“high, lofty, steep, stiff”); see above.

Verb

stalk (third-person singular simple present stalks, present participle stalking, simple past and past participle stalked)

1. (intransitive) To walk haughtily.

   • With manly mien he stalked along the ground.

   • 1704, Joseph Addison, Milton's Stile Imitated, in a Translation of a Story out of the Third Aeneid

     Then stalking through the deep, / He fords the ocean.

   • 1850, Charles Merivale, History of the Romans Under the Empire

     I forbear myself from entering the lists in which he has long stalked alone and unchallenged.

Translations

Noun

stalk (plural stalks)

1. A haughty style of walking.

Anagrams

• talks

Dutch

Pronunciation

Verb

stalk

1. first-person singular present indicative of stalken
2. imperative of stalken

English

Etymology

cat +? person

Noun

catperson (plural catpeople)

1. (fiction) An anthropomorphic feline, or an individual who has characteristics of a cat on an otherwise human body, such as cat ears and a cat tail.
   • 2012, Timothy Rowlands, Video Game Worlds: Working at Play in the Culture of EverQuest, Left Coast Press (2012), ?ISBN, page 69:

     I haven't seen one of my earliest acquaintances in the game, a catperson berserker named Silverkat, since Ugeta was just a lowbie.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:catperson.

Synonyms

• nekomimi

Hyponyms

• catboy
• catgirl

Translations

Anagrams

• Capertons, co-parents, coparents, rent-a-cops