yolk

Pluralyolks

Formsyolks, yolking, yolked

1. 1
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The yellow, rounded part of an egg, surrounded by the white, that nourishes the developing young.

   The chick embryo draws its nourishment from the yolk as it develops.

   A good hollandaise depends on yolks that are warmed slowly so they don't scramble.

   Note

   The name means simply "the yellow part": Old English ġeolca was built on ġeolu, "yellow". It counts when eggs are being separated, as in three yolks or the yolk from the white, and turns uncountable for the substance, as in a smear of yolk on the plate. In scientific writing the same thing is also called the vitellus.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The grease in a sheep's fleece, also called lanolin.

   Shearers' hands grow soft from the yolk in the fleeces they handle all day.

   The scouring plant recovers the yolk from raw wool and sells it to cosmetics makers.

   Similarlanolin, grease

   Note

   Here the word belongs to the wool trade, where the grease matters for money because it adds weight to a raw fleece. An 1846 number of The Cultivator finds wool-growers divided over whether that extra weight really raises what they receive for their wool. Outside the trade, the same grease is better known as lanolin.

3. 3
   verbtransitive or intransitive

   To produce yolk, as a female animal does while developing her eggs.

   Female turtles yolk up their eggs in the weeks before nesting.

   The scan showed the snake was already yolking, so a clutch was likely within weeks.

   Note

   A verb from the study of egg-laying animals, often followed by up: Barbara Rae Rose writes of iguanid lizard females yolking up their clutch of eggs. With up it stresses building the eggs to completion; without it, a female is simply yolking. The verb is regular, so yolks, yolking and yolked follow the usual pattern.

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