yolk

• yelk (obsolete)

From Middle English yolke, yelke, ȝolke, ȝelke, from Old English ġeolca, ġeoloca, ġioleca (“the yellow part, yolk”), from ġeolu (“yellow”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /jəʊk/
• (US) IPA^(key): /joʊ(l)k/, /jɔlk/

  • Audio (US):

    (file)

• Homophone: yoke
• Rhymes: -əʊk

yolk (countable and uncountable, plural yolks)

1. The yellow, spherical part of an egg that is surrounded by the white albumen, and serves as nutriment for the growing young.

   Synonyms: egg yolk, ovoplasma, vitellus

   Coordinate term: egg white

   To make meringue, you have to separate the white from the yolk.

2. The grease in a sheep's fleece; lanolin.
   • 1846, The Cultivator, page 270:

     Wool-growers appear to entertain different opinions in regard to the effect which yolk has on the value of the fleece. Some seem to suppose that the aggregate amount which they receive for their wool is increased from the greater weight which it possesses by being charged with this substance […]

• yolk on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

yolk (third-person singular simple present yolks, present participle yolking, simple past and past participle yolked)

1. To produce yolk.
   • 1981, Barbara Rae Rose, Activity and Reproduction in Iguanid Lizards, page 12:

     This is surprising in that these females were yolking up their clutch of eggs

From Middle English yolke (“the core or centre of something”), from Old English ġeolca, ġeoloca, ġioleca (“the yellow part, yolk”).

yolk

1. heart
   • 1689 James Farewell, The Irish Hudibras, or, Fingallian prince taken from the sixth book of Virgil's Æneids, and adapted to the present times. (Appendix: "Alphabetical Table" of "Fingallian Words, or Irish Phrases"):

     Yolk,

     Heart.