[f. LURK v. + -ING2.] That lurks; concealed, latent. Also, † skulking, lazy.
c. 1400. Destr. Troy, 1001. But a Sourdyng with sourgrem sanke in his hert, And a lourekand lust to Lamydon the kyng.
1570. Satir. Poems Reform., xiii. 176. Sa sall we se and heir Quhat lurkand lubers will tak thir Lymmers parts.
1667. Milton, P. L., IX. 1175. I … foretold The danger, and the lurking Enemie That lay in wait.
1676. Grew, Anat. Plants, IV. ii. (1682), 174. Keeping the Plants warm, and thereby enticing the young lurking Flowers to come abroad.
1705. Stanhope, Paraphr., I. 76. He will disclose many lurking motives.
1743. Lond. & Country Brew., II. (ed. 2), 107. It does … draw forth that lurking, keen, sour Quality that the Wood has imbibed.
1772–84. Cook, Voy. (1790), IV. 1274. We discovered a lurking rock, in the middle of one of the beds of weeds.
1807–8. Wordsworth, White Doe, vii. 1711. Why tell of mossy rock, or tree, By lurking Dernbrook’s pathless side?
1871. Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1876), IV. xvii. 91. And William … may have felt some lurking sympathy for those who had drawn on themselves the censures of the Church.
b. slang. Following the occupation of a ‘lurker’ or begging impostor.
1851. Mayhew, Lond. Labour (1864), I. 263. Among the more famous of the lurking patterers.
Hence Lurkingly adv.
1549. Coverdale, etc., Erasm. Par. Jude, 21. That kynde of men shall lurkingly crepe among the flocke of Christyanes.
a. 1693. Urquhart’s Rabelais, III. xviii. 149. Lurkingly, and in covert.
