Today's Word "Eke"
Published in Vocabulary
eke \eek (verb) - To increase, supplement, to fill out; to barely gain even through hard work. ("Eke" is eke an archaic adverb meaning "also.")
"After dating her for seven years, Johnson could eke very little joy out of Gladys' marriage to his erstwhile friend, Jennings."
Old English ecan from Old Germanic *aukjan, related to Latin augere "to increase" whence "augment," "auction," and Greek auxanein "to increase." "Auxiliary" is from Latin auxilium, eke based on this same root. Without the initial [a], the [u] becomes a consonant, [w], and the addition of the suffix [s] produces *wegs, which underlies the verb wax [waks] "to grow," as "to wax romantic" and the part of the body most notable for it growth"waist." Here is a good example of how the meanings of words evolve over time. Originally this word meant "to supplement, complete, fill out," as in "to eke out a living with a second job" or "eke out the material with a scrap in the sewing machine." However, the implication of a supplement, such as a second job, implies shortage and hardship, so the next generation came to (mis)take this word as meaning "supplement by hardship." The next generation then focused on the hardship itself, as to "eke out an existence from an abandoned mine," which suggests a bare existence achieved through difficult labor.
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