walk

verb

1. (intransitive)To move on the feet by alternately setting each foot (or pair or group of feet, in the case of animals with four or more feet) forward, with at least one foot on the ground at all times. Compare run.

   “To walk briskly for an hour every day is to keep fit.”

   “Athelstan Arundel walked home all the way, foaming and raging. […] His mother lived at Pembridge Square, which is four good measured miles from Lincoln's Inn. He walked the whole way, walking through crowds, and under the noses of dray-horses, carriage-horses, and cart-horses, without taking the least notice of them.”

   “Edward Churchill still attended to his work in a hopeless mechanical manner like a sleep-walker who walks safely on a well-known round. But his Roman collar galled him, his cossack stifled him, his biretta was as uncomfortable as a merry-andrew's cap and bells.”

2. (colloquial, intransitive)To "walk free", i.e. to win, or avoid, a criminal court case, particularly when actually guilty.

   “If you can’t present a better case, that robber is going to walk.”

3. (colloquial, euphemistic, intransitive)Of an object, to go missing or be stolen.

   “If you leave your wallet lying around, it’s going to walk.”

4. (intransitive)To walk off the field, as if given out, after the fielding side appeals and before the umpire has ruled; done as a matter of sportsmanship when the batsman believes he is out.
5. (transitive)To travel (a distance) by walking.

   “I walk two miles to school every day.”

   “The museum’s not far from here – you can walk it.”

   “Athelstan Arundel walked home all the way, foaming and raging. […] His mother lived at Pembridge Square, which is four good measured miles from Lincoln's Inn. He walked the whole way, walking through crowds, and under the noses of dray-horses, carriage-horses, and cart-horses, without taking the least notice of them.”

6. (transitive)To take for a walk or accompany on a walk.

   “I walk the dog every morning.”

   “Will you walk me home?”

   “I will rather trust[…]a thief to walk my ambling gelding.”

7. (transitive)To allow a batter to reach base by pitching four balls.
8. (intransitive)To reach base by being pitched four balls.
9. (intransitive)Of an object or machine, to move by shifting between two positions, as if it were walking.

   “If we don't bolt the washing machine down, it's going to walk across the room.”

10. (transitive)To cause something to move in such a way.

    “I carefully walked the ladder along the wall.”

11. (transitive)To full; to beat (cloth) to give it the consistency of felt.
12. (transitive)To traverse by walking (or analogous gradual movement).

    “I walked the streets aimlessly.”

    “Debugging this computer program involved walking the heap.”

13. (transitive)To operate the left and right throttles of (an aircraft) in alternation.

    “Still keeping his tail in the air, Red coaxed the “Airknocker” ahead and as we grasped his struts he slowly retarded the throttle. We walked the plane between two tiedown blocks and not until we had tied the struts did Red cut the switch.”

14. (colloquial, intransitive)To leave, resign.

    “If we don't offer him more money he'll walk.”

    “He will make their cowes and garrans to walk.”

15. (transitive)To push (a vehicle) alongside oneself as one walks.

    “The county had a successful defense only because the judge kept telling the jury at every chance that the cyclist should have walked his bicycle like a pedestrian.”

16. (intransitive)To behave; to pursue a course of life; to conduct oneself.

    “We walk perversely with God, and he will walk crookedly toward us.”

17. (intransitive)To go restlessly about; said of things or persons expected to remain quiet, such as a sleeping person, or the spirit of a dead person.

    “October 9, 1550, Hugh Latimer, sermon preached at Stamford, link I heard a pen walking in the chimney behind the cloth.”

    “There have been reports of cases where, in the event of a girl having died, a man was chosen to go through the marriage ceremony and even have intercourse with the body, before burial, so that she might not "walk".”

18. (obsolete)To be in motion; to act; to move.

    “her toung did walke / In fowle reproch.”

    “I have heard, but not believed, the spirits of the dead / May walk again.”

    “Come, doe you thinke, I'ld walke in any plot”

19. (historical, transitive)To put, keep, or train (a puppy) in a walk, or training area for dogfighting.
20. (informal, transitive)To move (a guest) to another hotel if their confirmed reservation is not available on the day of check-in.
21. (intransitive)To tend to move radially while feeding axially, whether tending toward on-center or tending toward off-center. Walking may be desirable (e.g., when a reamer walks into concentricity) or undesirable (e.g., when a twist drill walks into eccentricity.)
22. To pull (a trigger) rapid-fire by alternating two fingers.

noun

1. A trip made by walking.

   “I take a walk every morning.”

2. A distance walked.

   “It’s a long walk from my house to the library.”

   “The precinct is about ten minutes’ walk, straight ahead, so you can’t miss it.”

3. An Olympic Games track event requiring that the heel of the leading foot touch the ground before the toe of the trailing foot leaves the ground.
4. A manner of walking; a person's style of walking.

   “The Ministry of Silly Walks is underfunded this year.”

5. A path, sidewalk/pavement or other maintained place on which to walk.

   “And then it appeared to the young man that he was walking his love up the grass walk of Heriotside, with the house close by him.”

6. (figuratively)A person's conduct or course in life.

   “Men like Stuart who had no desire to extol Coleridge's virtues, and other witnesses quite as hostile, to whom a moral dereliction could hardly be a mortal offence, were loud in praise of the purity of his walk in life.”

7. A situation where all players fold to the big blind, as their first action (instead of calling or raising), once they get their cards.
8. An award of first base to a batter following four balls being thrown by the pitcher; known in the rules as a "base on balls".

   “The pitcher now has two walks in this inning alone.”

9. In coffee, coconut, and other plantations, the space between them.
10. (Belize, Caribbean, Guyana, Jamaica)An area of an estate planted with fruit-bearing trees.

    “Twenty Acres of Land well kept in a Plantain Walk, will afford a very considerable Support, as Plantains are as hearty a Food as Eddoes, and the Plantain Walk may be a Nursery for declining Slaves, as well as to fatten old Cattle when they are past Labour.”

    “For half a mile from Vaughansfield the road, now a mere track, leads through pastures and a coffee-walk to the foot of a very steep hill […]”

    “1961, Wilson Harris, The Far Journey of Oudin, Book 2, Chapter 6, in The Guyana Quartet, London: Faber and Faber, 1985, p. 150, One day he knew he would build this identical palace for himself. Not next to the road like now—where the present cottage was—but half a mile inside the coconut walk.”

    “He couldn’t sleep and took to walking outside at night, to look at the stars, to feel the cool air, and for a long time wasn’t even conscious that he always ended up standing in the darkness of the cocoa walk staring at the shutters of Bridget’s room.”

11. (historical)A place for keeping and training puppies for dogfighting.
12. (historical)An enclosed area in which a gamecock is confined to prepare him for fighting.
13. A sequence of alternating vertices and edges, where each edge's endpoints are the preceding and following vertices in the sequence. Compare path, trail.
14. (colloquial)Something very easily accomplished; a walk in the park.

    “And for the strongroom itself, he can tell us where to find the combination of the day. We had allowed four hours, Joe, but with this help, once you get us inside, it's a walk! I've been timing it.”

15. (UK, dated, slang)A cheque drawn on a bank that was not a member of the London Clearing and whose sort code was allocated on a one-off basis; they had to be "walked" (hand-delivered by messengers).
16. (uncountable)A particular histidine kinase

name

1. A surname.