Noun: flank
| Singular | flank |
| Plural | flanks |
Sample Sentences
-
Holonym: side
-
Cautiously I approached the flank of the cliffs, where they terminated in an abrupt escarpment as though some all powerful hand had broken off a great section of rock and set it upon the surface of the earth. [1918 September–November, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Land That Time Forgot”, in The Blue Book Magazine, Chicago, Ill.: Story-press Corp., →OCLC; republished as chapter VIII, in Hugo Gernsback, editor, Amazing Stories, (please specify |part=I to III), New York, N.Y.: Experimenter Publishing, 1927, →OCLC:]
-
Ahead the flanks of the Pennines gleamed faintly in the moonlight, looking as though they themselves were part of some dry and deserted lunar landscape. [1960 January, G. Freeman Allen, “"Condor"—British Railways' fastest freight train”, in Trains Illustrated, page 48:]
-
I took the quarter and hid it in my right flank.
-
Ford survived a primary challenge in 1976 from the right flank of the Republican Party by Ronald Reagan.
-
The hosts also had Paul Robinson to thank for a string of saves, three of them coming against Jerome Thomas, who gave Michel Salgado a torrid time down the left flank. [2011 January 23, Alistair Magowan, “Blackburn 2 - 0 West Brom”, in BBC:]
Nouns inflected like flank
soldier's woundwort,
Nicosian,
whopper,
greypate,
tactile sign language,
chronotrope,
Rosie Lee,
dissentient,
photoinactivator,
sulphonediimine,
coastal waterfall,
residuary devise,
bituminization,
nitrosonaphthol,
smṛiti,
geosphere,
backscreen,
mensuralist,
flocculate,
flocculant, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
From Late Middle English flanc, from Late Old English flanc (“flank”), from Old French flanc, of Germanic origin, probably Frankish *hlanca, from Proto-West Germanic *hlanku (“bend, curve, hip, flank”), from Proto-Germanic *hlankaz (“flexible, sleek, bendsome”), from Proto-Indo-European *kleng- (“to bend”). Akin to Old High German hlanca (“loin”), Middle Low German lanke (“hip joint”) (German lenken (“to bend, turn, lead”)), Old English hlanc (“loose, slender, flaccid, lank”). More at lank. See: Old English Nouns '
flanc', Old English Nouns '
hlanc'.