ankle

Pluralankles

Formsankles, ankling, ankled

1. 1
   nouncountable

   The joint connecting the foot to the leg, and the narrow part of the body containing it.

   The runner rolled her ankle on the uneven trail.

   Water rose to their ankles as the river overflowed.

   Note

   An old Germanic word that has barely changed: Old English ancol, from Proto-Germanic *ankulaz, already meaning "ankle". Old English also had a longer form, anclēow, which lives on in the rare variants anclef, ancliff and ancley. The noun covers both the joint and the narrow stretch around it. You roll an ankle at the joint, but you wade ankle-deep by the region.

2. 2
   verbslangtransitive or intransitive

   To travel on foot; to walk somewhere.

   I think I'll ankle home and skip the bus tonight.

   She ankled across town to meet her friends at the bar.

   Similarwalk, stroll, amble

   Note

   Slang that nearly always travels with a direction word: ankle over, ankle round, ankle up and down, or ankle one's way down a corridor. It has a long literary run, from Zora Neale Hurston in 1948 through P. G. Wodehouse in 1966 to Thomas Pynchon in 2009. It keeps a knowing, playful tone, so it suits comic or casual prose better than plain reports of getting somewhere.

3. 3
   verbintransitive

   To repeatedly tilt the foot at the joint while pedaling, increasing the force delivered to the pedal through each revolution.

   Trained cyclists ankle to keep power steady across the entire stroke.

   He started ankling halfway through the race to climb more efficiently.

   Note

   A cycling technique named for the joint that does the work, the ankle itself. The rider does not hold the foot rigid but tilts it through each turn of the crank. Force then reaches the pedal across more of the revolution, and power output stays smoother. It is strictly a cyclist's term. Off the bike, the verb is more likely to be the slang for walking.

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