# ankle

Pronunciation: say "ANG-kuhl" /ˈæŋ.kəl/

## Noun

1. The joint connecting the foot to the leg, and the narrow part of the body containing it.
   - Simple: The part of your body where your foot joins your leg.
   - _The runner rolled her ankle on the uneven trail._
   - _Water rose to their ankles as the river overflowed._

## Verb

2. To travel on foot; to walk somewhere. *(slang)*
   - Simple: To go from one place to another on foot.
   - _I think I'll ankle home and skip the bus tonight._
   - _She ankled across town to meet her friends at the bar._
3. To repeatedly tilt the foot at the joint while pedaling, increasing the force delivered to the pedal through each revolution.
   - Simple: To tilt your foot up and down while pedaling a bike, so you push harder on each turn.
   - _Trained cyclists ankle to keep power steady across the entire stroke._
   - _He started ankling halfway through the race to climb more efficiently._

## Origin

It comes from Middle English ankel, from Old English ancol, which traces back to Proto-West Germanic *ankul and Proto-Germanic *ankulaz, meaning "ankle." It is related to words in Icelandic, Danish, Swedish, Dutch, and German, and perhaps to Old High German words for "thigh" or "shin"; it is also a doublet of angle.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/ankle (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).