hulc

Uncertain. Relation to Medieval Latin hulcus, holcas (“a kind of ship”) is uncertain (the Old English may have borrowed from the Latin or vice versa). Compare also Old High German holcho (“a barge, freighter, cargo ship”), Old Norse holkr (“metal tube, ring", later also "barge, cargo ship”). It's possible that the word is originally the same as Old English holc (“a hollow, cavity”). Alternatively, the various senses may represent separate origins that coalesced into a single term.

• IPA^(key): /xulk/, [huɫk]

hulc m

1. a light ship, hulk
2. (Late Old English) a heavy ship of clumsy make
3. hut, hovel, cabin

Strong a-stem:

• āhlocian
• healoc
• holc

• Middle English: hulke, holke, hollek, hulk
  • English: hulk

• Joseph Bosworth, T. Northcote Toller (1898) “HULC”, in An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, second edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press.