skink

• IPA^(key): /skɪŋk/

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• Rhymes: -ɪŋk

Possibly from Middle Low German schink, schinke, schenke (“leg; shank; shin bone; ham”), from Old Saxon skinka, from Proto-West Germanic *skinkō (“shank; thigh; that which is bent”), from Proto-Germanic *skinkô, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)keng- (“to limp; to be crooked, slant”).

The word is cognate with Danish skinke (“ham”), Middle Dutch schenke, schinke (“shin; hough; ham”), Icelandic skinka (“ham”), Norwegian skinke (“ham”), Old English ġesċincio, ġesċinco (“kidney fat”), Old High German skinka, skinko (“shank; shin bone”) (Middle High German schinke (“shank; shin bone; ham”), modern German Schinken (“ham; pork from the hindquarters”)), Old Saxon skinka (“ham”), Old Swedish skinke (modern Swedish skinka (“ham”)).[1]

skink (plural skinks)

1. (Scotland, Northern England) A shin of beef.

   lean sirloin, skink and pot-roast

2. (chiefly Scotland, obsolete) A soup or pottage made from a boiled shin of beef.
   • 1623, Francis Bacon, Historia Vitae et Mortis

     For there are in the Flesh , Bones , Skinnes , organs , and the severall limbes of the living body : such spirits as are in the Flesh , Bone , and Skinke , beeing separated

3. (chiefly Scotland, by extension) Usually preceded by a descriptive word: a soup or pottage made using other ingredients.

   Cullen skink

• Cullen skink

From Middle French scinc, from Latin scincus, from Ancient Greek σκίγγος (skíngos), σκίγκος (skínkos).

A skink among flowers in South Africa

skink (plural skinks)

1. A lizard of the family Scincidae, having small or reduced limbs or none at all and long tails that are regenerated when shed; a sandfish.

• blind skink (Dibamus spp.)
• blue-tailed skink
• blue-tongued skink, blue-tongue skink (Tiliqua spp.)
• brown skink (Oligosoma zelandicum)
• coal skink (Plestiodon anthracinus)
• crevice skink (Egernia spp.)
• emo skink (Emoia spp.)
• fire skink (Mochlus fernandi)
• King's skink (Egernia kingii)
• legless skink
• mountain skink
• supple skink (Lygosoma spp.)
• rock skink (Flexiseps decaryi)
• sand skink
• water skink (Eulamprus spp.)
• western skink (Plestiodon skiltonianus)

From Middle English skinken, skynken, skenken, from Middle Dutch scinken, scenken, schenken and/or Old Norse skenkja, both from Proto-Germanic *skankijaną. Cognate with German schenken (“to give as a present”), Dutch schenken (“to pour, give as a present”). See also the inherited doublet shink.

skink (third-person singular simple present skinks, present participle skinking, simple past and past participle skinked)

1. (transitive, intransitive, Scotland) To serve (a drink).
   • 1640 November 20 (licensing date, Gregorian calendar; published 1652)​, James Shirley, “The Imposture”, in William Gifford and Alexander Dyce, editors, The Dramatic Works and Poems of James Shirley, […], volume V, London: John Murray, […], published 1833, →OCLC, Act V, scene i, page 246:

     Such wine as Ganymede doth skink to Jove, / When he invites the gods to feast with him / On Juno's wedding-day.

   • 1900, Theophrastus, “Of Foulness”, in [anonymous], transl.; David J[osiah] Brewer, Edward A. Allen, and William Schuyler, editors, The World’s Best Essays from the Earliest Period to the Present Time […], volume X, royal edition, St. Louis, Mo.: Ferd[inand] P. Kaiser, →OCLC, page 3769:

     [W]hile he would spit beyond the table, he all-to-bespawleth him who skinketh at the feast.

2. (transitive, Scotland, Northern England, obsolete) To give (something) as a present.

skink (plural skinks)

1. (obsolete) A drink.

• The Dictionary of the Scots Language
• The Dictionary of the Scots Language
• skink in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913

• kinks

Borrowed from English skink, from Middle French scinc, from Latin scincus, from Ancient Greek σκίγγος (skíngos), σκίγκος (skínkos).

• IPA^(key): /skɪŋk/
• Hyphenation: skink
• Rhymes: -ɪŋk

skink m (plural skinken, diminutive skinkje n)

1. A skink, any lizard of the family Scincidae

• hazelskink