or hulky, hulking fellow, subs. (colloquial).—A fat person; a big lout. Generally, ‘great hulk of a fellow.’
d. 1631. DRAYTON, The Moon-calf (CHALMERS, English Poets, 1810, iv., 126).
| Wallowing she lay, like to a boist’rous HULK, | |
| Dropsy’d with riots. |
1608. WARD, The London Spy, Pt. xiv., p. 334. Up in the Chimney Corner sat a great HULKING Fellow.
1748. T. DYCHE, A New General English Dictionary (5 ed.). HULK (s.) … also a lazy, dronish fellow.
1785. GROSE, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v. HULKEY, or HULKING. A great HULKEY fellow; an overgrown clumsy lout, or fellow.
1858. G. ELIOT, Mr. Gilfil’s Love-Story, ch. ii. When you’ve got … some great HULKY fellow for a husband, who swears at you and kicks your children.
1870. Chambers’s Journal, 9 July, p. 447. He sees a slouching, shambling, HULK of a fellow standing listlessly in a doorway.
1871. G. ELIOT, Middlemarch, ch. lvi. I want to go first and have a round with that HULKY fellow who turned to challenge me.
1883. A. DOBSON, Old-World Idylls, ‘My Landlady,’ p. 164.
| I’d like to give that HULKING brute a hit— | |
| Beating his horse in such a shameful way! |
1893. National Observer, 29 July, p. 267, col. 2. The absolute ascendancy exercised by a small but brilliant member … over a HULKING Junior.
Verb (colloquial).—To hang about; to MOOCH (q.v.).
