ilk
nounEtymology Inherited from Middle English ilke, from Old English ilca, conjectured as from Proto-Germanic *ilīkaz, a compound of *iz and *-līkaz from the noun *līką (“body”). The sense of “type”, “kind” is from the application of the phrase of that ilk to families: the word thus came to mean family.
1
A type, race or category; a group of entities that have common characteristics such that they may be grouped together.
- "Hinkydink” or “Bathhouse John,” or others of that ilk, were proprietors of the most notorious dives in Chicago[…]1905 April–October, Upton Sinclair, chapter XXV, in The Jungle, New York, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 26 February 1906, →OCLC:
- The cow is of the bovine ilk; One end is moo, the other, milk.1931, Ogden Nash, The Cow:
1 more example
- On the surface, the film is a globe-trotting gross-out caper in which Nobby, who's from a hellish version of the titular Lincolnshire town ("twinned with Chernobyl"), is reunited with his long-lost brother Sebastian (Mark Strong), who has become a spy for the British secret services. That makes him a servant of the powers-that-be that have no time for Nobby and his scrounging ilk.2016 February 23, Robbie Collin, “Grimsby review: ' Sacha Baron Cohen's vital, venomous action movie'”, in The Daily Telegraph (London):
- Derived terms
- of that ilk, thilk