hulk
see also: Hulk
Pronunciation Noun

hulk (plural hulks)

  1. A non-functional but floating ship, usually stripped of rigging and equipment, and often put to other uses such as storage or accommodation.
    • 1918, Katherine Mansfield, Prelude, as printed in Selected Stories, Oxford World's Classics (2002), paperback, page 83
      They could see the lighthouse shining on Quarantine Island, and the green lights on the old coal hulks.
  2. (archaic) Any large ship that is difficult to maneuver.
    • 1602, William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, act ii, scene 3
      Light boats sail swift, though greater hulks draw deep.
  3. A large structure with a dominating presence.
  4. A big (and possibly clumsy) person.
  5. (bodybuilding) An excessively muscled person.
Translations Translations Translations Translations Verb

hulk (hulks, present participle hulking; past and past participle hulked)

  1. To reduce (a ship) to a (nonfunctional) hulk.
    • 2003, Gordon de L. Marshall, Ships' Figure Heads in Australia, Tangee Publishing (ISBN 9780975128909), page 52:
      In Fremantle very few vessels appear to have been reduced to hulks, and only one figure head Samuel Plimsoll, [Fig. 62] survives from a sailing ship hulked in 1904. […] The Sarah Burnyeat was hulked in Albany in 1886, […]
    • 2017, Rif Winfield, Stephen S Roberts, French Warships in the Age of Sail 1626–1786, Seaforth Publsihing (ISBN 9781473893542), page 203:
      No further additions were made to this group, and by 1729 the Rank was extinct (the last to be struck was the Ludlow, which had been hulked in 1719).
  2. To be a hulk, a large (hulking) and often imposing presence.
    • 1992, Richard Condon, The Venerable Bead, Macmillan (ISBN 9780312312770), page 163:
      After one trip with them, he decided he couldn't stand to have bodyguards hulking around him wherever he went. He felt like an idiot walking along the aisles of the supermarket with eight lumpy men standing around ...
    • 2006, Angus Dunn, Writing in the Sand, Luath Press Ltd (ISBN 9781905222476):
      As the occupants stepped out, he hulked at them menacingly and asked them the traditional question. 'Can Ah help youse?'
    • 2007, Cheryl Strayed, Torch, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (ISBN 9780618772100), page 156:
      An oven hulked in the middle of the room, detached from everything, and a gathering of objects sat in the corner: a rolled rug with gnarled tassels, a chair from the bar downstairs that was missing a leg, a box ...
    • 2008, J. D. Robb, Three in Death, Penguin (ISBN 9781101220368):
      The remains of an old bar hulked in the center of the room. As it was draped with more dusty protective cloth, she assumed Hopkins had intended to restore it to whatever its former glory might have been.
    • 2012, Paul Melko, The Broken Universe, Tor Books (ISBN 9781429946605), page 314:
      The whoosh pushed John down, and as he fell, he turned to see the machine hulking over him, just meters away. “Shit!” he cried ...
  3. To move (one's large, hulking body).
    • 1934, Gösta Larsson, Our Daily Bread: A Novel:
      After a while he hulked up to where Erland sat, putting his hairy fist on the table and watching the boy work.
    • 1968, Francis Russell, The Shadow of Blooming Grove - Warren G. Harding in His Times (ISBN 9780070543386):
      This hearty, willing man had hulked his 354 pounds about the world, faithfully and deftly running presidential errands in Cuba, Panama, the Philippines, Rome, Russia, and Japan and China.
    • 1994, Alison Hawthorne Deming, Science and Other Poems, LSU Press (ISBN 9780807119150), page 16:
      A man with four children crowding like saplings around him whistles to wake up the elephant seal who has hulked his impossible body onto the beach.
    • 2008, Craig Conte, Millennial Reign, iUniverse (ISBN 9780595524679), page 301:
      Instead he hulked his way towards Kruger again as the crowd ooohd and aaahd at the prowess. The two men were about equal in height, but Matusak outweighed Kruger by about fifty pounds.
    • 2017, N.D.Rabin, Hidden Magic: Fear of the Smallest Wizard, AuthorHouse (ISBN 9781524678371)
      Hadrian hulked his mass over the spot where the children had disappeared. 'You are still here, aren't you? I can feel your presence.' He walked forwards and his giant strides came down on the children. They scrambled out the way, ...
Verb

hulk (hulks, present participle hulking; past and past participle hulked)

  1. To remove the entrails of; to disembowel.
    to hulk a hare

Hulk
Pronunciation Proper noun
  1. A fictional Marvel Comics character who gains superhuman strength when he becomes angry.
    • 2007 November 27, Ken Keeler and David X. Cohen, “Bender’s Big Score”, Futurama, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:
      Fry: How can you say Lars is more mature than me?
      Leela: Well, for one thing, his checkbook doesn't have the Hulk on it.
Noun

hulk (plural hulks)

  1. A person resembling, especially physically, the Hulk in the Marvel Comics Universe.
  2. (by extension) A strongman.



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