Also 5–7 stalke, 7 stauk. [f. STALK v.]
1. An act of stalking game.
c. 1450. in Trans. Philol. Soc. (1909), III. 53. A Stalke of ffostersse.
1470–85. Malory, Arthur, XVIII. xxi. 764. They were shoters and coude wel kylle a dere bothe at the stalke & at the trest.
1621. Markham, Fowling, viii. 53. Also you must obserue in the Stalke to turne that side [of the stalking-horse] euer vpon the Fowle which is plaine without splents.
1873. G. C. Davies, Mount. & Mere, x. 83. A careful stalk might have brought a shooter within shot.
1885. W. H. Russell, in Harper’s Mag., April, 770/1. There may be a deer drive or a stalk at Glenmuick.
1907. J. H. Patterson, Man-Eaters of Tsavo, xx. 225. My stalk was crowned with success, the beautiful animal being bagged without much trouble.
b. attrib., as † stalk-hound.
1663. Killigrew, Parson’s Wedd., IV. i. A pox upon them for a couple of Stauk-hounds; have they killed at last?
2. A striding gait; a stately or pompous mode of walking.
1590. Spenser, F. Q., II. vii. 26. An vgly feend,… The which with monstrous stalke behind him stept, And euer as he went, dew watch vpon him kept.
1599. B. Jonson, Cynthia’s Rev., V. iv. Leave him not so much as a looke, an eye, a stalke, or an imperfect oth, to expresse himselfe by.
1694. Addison, Greatest Brit. Poets, 56. Milton next, with high and haughty stalks, Unfetter’d in majestick numbers walks.
1751. Johnson, Rambler, No. 179, ¶ 4. The sprightly trip, the stately stalk, and the lofty mien.
1787–9. Wordsw., Even. Walk, 242. Then issuing often with unwieldy stalk, They [the swans] crush with broad black feet their flowery walk.
1869. Lowell, Study Wind., Gard. Acquaint. (1871), 11. Their [the crow-blackbirds’] port is grave, and their stalk across the turf as martial as that of a second-rate ghost in Hamlet.
