[f. LURK v.]
1. The action of LURK v.; a hiding or lying concealed.
1563. Homilies, II. Idleness (1859), 518. If we give ourselves to idleness and sloth, to lurking and loitering.
1587. Fleming, Contn. Holinshed, III. 1360/1. She hath caused some of these … sowers of rebellion, to be discouered for all their secret lurkings.
1677. Temple, Ess. Gout, Wks. 1731, I. 137. The Approaches or Lurkings of the Gout … may indispose Men to Thought and to Care.
1713. Addison, Guardian, No. 71, ¶ 5. By the wanderings, roarings, and lurkings of his lions, he knew the way to every man breathing.
1824. W. Irving, T. Trav., II. 98. Who knew every suspicious character, and … all his lurkings.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., xvii. IV. 31. After about three years of wandering and lurking he … made his peace with the government.
2. Thieves’ slang. Stealing, fraudulent begging.
1851. Mayhew, Lond. Labour, I. 250. After a career of incessant ‘lurking’ and deceit. Ibid., 363. Many modes of thieving as well as begging are termed ‘lurking.’
3. attrib., as lurking-corner, -den, -hole, -place.
1545. Ascham, Toxoph., I. (Arb.), 53. When the nyghte and *lurking corners, giueth lesse occasion to vnthriftinesse, than lyght daye.
1573. L. Lloyd, Marrow of Hist. (1653), 252. The *lurking dens and secret snares of Cupid.
1567. Maplet, Gr. Forest, 6. The most bolde and aduenterous men, are said, to seeke out the *lurking holes of the Dragon.
1678. Locke, Lett. to Grenville, 6 Dec. in Fox Bourne, Life (1876), I. vii. 394. No garrisons unreduced, no lurking-holes unsearched.
1772. Ann. Reg., 32/2. He was found hid in a chimney, covered with soot; a lurking-hole suited to its inhabitant.
1571. Golding, Calvin on Ps. xvii. 12. He nameth their Dennes or privy *lurking-places.
1611. Bible, Ps. x. 8. He sitteth in the lurking places of the villages.
1751. Smollett, Per. Pic. (1779), III. viii. 238. I was … discovered … and hunted out of my lurking place.
1869. Browning, Ring & Bk., X. 729. He … hies to the old lurking-place.
