It's Merriam-Webster's word of the day for September 25th.

Today's word is ilk, spelled I L K. Ilk is a noun. It means sort or kind. It's usually

used in short phrases with and or of, as in and that ilk or of their ilk. Here's the word used in a sentence from

Rolling Stone by Denise Kiernan. When they weren't working Oak Ridges found

plenty to keep them occupied.

There were sports teams, clubs of every ilk, bowling alleys, and dances most nights of the

week.

The noun ilk comes from the old English pronoun ilkka I l c a by way of a pronoun

ilk that's still in use but not in most modern English dialects that ilk is synonymous with the word same and

persists chiefly in Scotland where it's used in the phrase of that ilk, meaning

of the same place, territorial designation, or name.

It's generally used in reference to the names of land-owning families

and their eponymous estates, as in the grants of that ilk, which means the grants of grant. In the late 1700s,

the Scots phrase extended to mean of that kind or sort, a usage that found its way into modern English.

With your word of the day, I'm Peter Sokoloski.

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