lick
noun
- small watercourse or an ephemeral stream
verb
- to pass tongue over
Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /lɪk/
name
Etymology: North German surname, from a short/pet form of a name related to Leute (“people”); compare Leopold.
- A surname.
noun
Etymology: Back-formation from hit a lick, which see. Ultimately from liquor.
- 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”
verb
Etymology: From Middle English likken, from Old English liccian, from Proto-West Germanic *likkōn, from Proto-Germanic *likkōną, from Proto-Indo-European *leyǵʰ- (“to lick”). Sense evolution towards violence unclear; not paralleled in any other Germanic language. See also Saterland Frisian likje, Dutch likken, German lecken; also Old Irish ligid, Latin lingō (“lick”), ligguriō (“to lap, lick up”), Lithuanian laižyti, Old Church Slavonic лизати (lizati), Ancient Greek λείχω (leíkhō), Old Armenian լիզեմ (lizem), Persian لیسیدن (lisidan), Sanskrit लेढि (léḍhi), रेढि (réḍhi).
- To stroke with the tongue.
“The cat licked its fur.”
- 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.”
- To 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. […]"”
- To defeat decisively, particularly in a fight.
“My dad can lick your dad.”
- To 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.”
- To perform cunnilingus.
- To do anything partially.
- 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.”