What does "eke" mean?
Eke: To increase; to add to; to augment; -- now commonly used with out, the notion conveyed being to add to, or piece out by a laborious, inferior, or scanty addition; as, to eke out a scanty supply of one kind with some other. "To eke my pain." Spenser. He eked out by his wits an income of barely fifty pounds. Macaulay.
Additional senses
- 2.In addition; also; likewise. [Obs. or Archaic] 'T will be prodigious hard to prove That this is eke the throne of love. Prior. A trainband captain eke was he Of famous London town. Cowper. Note: Eke serves less to unite than to render prominent a subjoined more important sentence or notion. Mätzner.
- 3.An addition. [R.] Clumsy ekes that may well be spared. Geddes.
Sources
- Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 edition (public domain, via GCIDE / Project Gutenberg).
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- Published: 2026-07-17T00:00:00-07:00 · Modified: 2026-07-17T00:00:00-07:00