polk
polk Lexical Profile
polk Game Scores & Validity
• noun
American A tall, branching perennial herbaceous plant (Phytolacca americana) native to eastern North America, bearing clusters of dark purple berries and young shoots that are cooked as greens after thorough boiling; pokeweed.
"Early settlers gathered young shoots of polk in the spring and boiled them multiple times to make them safe to eat."
Scottish A small pool, puddle, or deep hole in a stream.
"The trout darted beneath the overhanging bank into a shadowy polk in the burn."
• verb
To dance the polka.
"Couples laughed as they began to polk energetically across the crowded wooden floor of the hall."
• Rhymes for polk
Word Origin & Etymology
As a verb meaning to dance the polka, it is an 1840s back-formation from the noun 'polka', which comes from Czech 'půlka' (literally 'half-step'). As a dialectal noun for pokeweed, it is a spelling variant of 'poke', derived from the Powhatan word 'pakon' referring to a plant yielding red dye.
Usage Trend
Historical frequency of usage in published text.