lick
verbnounnouncommon in dialogue
- United States//lɪk//
To stroke with the tongue.
verb
- 1
To stroke with the tongue.
The cat licked its fur.
- 2
To lap; to take in with the tongue.
She licked the last of the honey off the spoon before washing it.
Jim closed his eyes and licked his vanilla ice cream cone.
- 3
datedTo beat with repeated blows.
"What a curious kind of a fool a girl is! Never been licked in school! Shucks! What's a licking! That's just like a girl -- they're so thin-skinned and chicken-hearted. […]"
- 4
datedTo defeat decisively, particularly in a fight.
My dad can lick your dad.
- 5
datedTo overcome.
I think I can lick this.
This week, diskery and phono manufacturer spokesmen sounded tempering notes of caution as they discussed the many problems still to be licked in developing truly compatible stereo with fidelity standards equal to those now available in monaural disks.
- 6
slangTo perform cunnilingus.
- 7
To do anything partially.
- 8
To lap.
Now, in this decadent age the art of fire-making had been altogether forgotten on the earth. The red tongues that went licking up my heap of wood were an altogether new and strange thing to Weena.
Etymology
From Middle English likken, from Old English liccian, from Proto-West Germanic *likkōn, from Proto-Germanic *likkōną (“to lick”), from Proto-Indo-European *leyǵʰ- (“to lick”). Sense evolution towards violence unclear; not paralleled in any other Germanic language. Cognates Cognate with Dutch lekken, likken (“to lick”), German lecken (“to lick”), Vilamovian łaekia, łakia, łȧḱkja (“to lick”), Yiddish לעקן (lekn, “to lick”), French lécher (“to lick”), Friulian lecâ (“to lick”), Italian leccare (“to lick”), Lombard leccà (“to lick”), Norman litchi (“to lick”), Occitan lecar (“to lick”); also Faroese and Icelandic sleikja (“to lick”), Breton leat (“to lick”), Irish and Scottish Gaelic ligh (“to lick”), Welsh llyfu (“to lick”), Latin lingō (“to lick”), Ancient Greek λείχω (leíkhō, “to lick up”), Latvian làizît (“to lick”), Lithuanian laižyti (“to lick”), Bulgarian ли́жа (líža, “to lick”), Czech lízat (“to lick”), Macedonian лиже (liže, “to lick”), Polish lizać (“to lick”), Russian лиза́ть (lizátʹ, “to lick”), Serbo-Croatian ли́зати, lízati (“to lick”), Slovene lizati (“to lick”), Ukrainian лиза́ти (lyzáty, “to lick”), Armenian լիզել (lizel, “to lick”), Central Kurdish لستن (listin, “to lick”), Northern Kurdish alastin, alêstin, alistin, alîstin (“to lick”), Persian لیسیدن (lēsīdan / lisidan, “to lick”), Sanskrit लिह् (lih), रिह् (rih, “to lick; to eat”).
noun
- 1
The act of licking; a stroke of the tongue.
The cat gave its fur a lick.
- 2
The amount of some substance obtainable with a single lick.
Give me a lick of ice cream.
- 3
A quick and careless application of anything, as if by a stroke of the tongue.
a lick of paint
to put on colours with a lick of the brush
When ſly Jemmy Twitcher had ſmugg'd up his face / With a lick of court white waſh,
- 4
A place where animals lick minerals from the ground.
The birds gathered at the clay lick.
- 5
A small watercourse or ephemeral stream. It ranks between a rill and a stream.
We used to play in the lick.
- 6
A stroke or blow.
Hit that wedge a good lick with the sledgehammer.
I went in big licks, and, although it was a good-sized pile, I chopped it all up before he got back at night.
Who gave you your worst licks and why?
- 7
A small amount; a whit.
You don't have a lick of sense.
I didn't do a lick of work today.
Allen Gregory DeLongpre: Why don't I call Jean-Michel at Il Portofino? We'll get a table outside? Ooh, I'm not getting a lick of service. Babe, can I hop on your landline?
- 8
informalAn attempt at something.
Well, my album did well, but "Ruby" was a timely song and that wasn't the time for it to step out. […] Then Waylon Jennings took a lick at it on an album, and my old buddy Roger Miller covered it, too, in his album. And although they're outstanding artists, nothing much happened with the song.
- 9
A short motif.
There are some really good blues licks in this solo.
- 10
informalA rate of speed. (Always qualified by good, fair, or a similar adjective.)
The bus was travelling at a good lick when it swerved and left the road.
Dandy Marx, a perfect gentleman in the true sense of the word, now drives forth under single harness ; whereas “once upon a time,” he rushed over the ground at a “big lick,” reigning his four beautiful roans, and continually kicking up an extra excitement among the “fashionables.”
- 11
slangAn act of cunnilingus.
You up for a lick tonight?
noun
- 1
An instance or opportunity to earn money fast, usually by illegal means, thus a heist, drug deal etc. or its victim; mostly used in phrasal verbs: hit a lick, hit licks
Bitch, pig, pull out with the stick / everything I hit like a lick / We don’t miss
You see a lick and you rob him / I see a lick then I stop on the block and I pause him
JAEKAE: Free all my G’s, they got locked for licks. Five minutes of fame and I’m hittin’ for six. Past seven, eight, nine, and you’re in my bits.
Remember on my first lick, got lost in a house / Had to dip, bro, quick, before the dogs came out
Etymology
Back-formation from hit a lick, which see. Ultimately from liquor.
Forms
- plural
- licks
- past tense
- licked
- past participle
- licked
- present participle
- licking
- third person singular
- licks
lick · To stroke with the tongue.
Lick · A surname.licked · Having been the target of a lick; touched by a tongue.licking · The act by which something is licked.