ELK

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does elk mean? 

• ELK (noun)
  The noun ELK has 3 senses:

1. large northern deer with enormous flattened antlers in the male; called 'elk' in Europe and 'moose' in North America

2. large North American deer with large much-branched antlers in the male

3. common deer of temperate Europe and Asia

  Familiarity information: ELK used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ELK (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Large northern deer with enormous flattened antlers in the male; called 'elk' in Europe and 'moose' in North America

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Synonyms:

Alces alces; elk; moose

Hypernyms ("elk" is a kind of...):

cervid; deer (distinguished from Bovidae by the male's having solid deciduous antlers)

Holonyms ("elk" is a member of...):

Alces; genus Alces (elk or moose)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Large North American deer with large much-branched antlers in the male

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Synonyms:

American elk; Cervus elaphus canadensis; elk; wapiti

Hypernyms ("elk" is a kind of...):

cervid; deer (distinguished from Bovidae by the male's having solid deciduous antlers)

Holonyms ("elk" is a member of...):

Cervus; genus Cervus (the type genus of the Cervidae)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Common deer of temperate Europe and Asia

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Synonyms:

American elk; Cervus elaphus; elk; red deer; wapiti

Hypernyms ("elk" is a kind of...):

cervid; deer (distinguished from Bovidae by the male's having solid deciduous antlers)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "elk"):

hart; stag (a male deer, especially an adult male red deer)

hind (a female deer, especially an adult female red deer)

brocket (male red deer in its second year)

Holonyms ("elk" is a member of...):

Cervus; genus Cervus (the type genus of the Cervidae)

 Context examples 

No such deer exist anywhere else upon earth, for the moose or elks which I have seen would hardly have reached its shoulders.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

In the study, 14 macaques were cerebrally and orally exposed to brain matter from CWD-infected deer and elk, and then monitored for up to 13 years.

(Study finds no chronic wasting disease transmissibility in macaques, National Institutes of Health)

Organisms of the genus Elaeophora infect wild elk and domestic sheep causing ischaemic necrosis of the brain, blindness, and dermatosis of the face.

(Filariasis, NLM, Medical Subject Headings)

Thence he passed to the huge and ferocious bird, the phororachus, and to the great elk which still roams upon this upland.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

CWD is a type of brain-damaging and fatal prion disease found in deer, elk and moose; in humans, prion diseases can take more than a decade to develop.

(Study finds no chronic wasting disease transmissibility in macaques, National Institutes of Health)

It passed so swiftly that we were unable to say what it was; but if it were a deer, as was claimed by Lord John, it must have been as large as those monstrous Irish elk which are still dug up from time to time in the bogs of my native land.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)