It's Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 12.
Today's word is Bilk, spelled B-I-L-K.
Bilk is a verb.
It typically is applied in contexts relating to fraud and deceit.
It can mean to cheat out of something valuable or to evade payment of or to,
or to obtain something by defrauding someone.
Here's the word used in a sentence from the Boston Globe by John Hilliard.
In a scheme revealed in February,
Arlington was built out of nearly a half million dollars by international hackers impersonating a vendor working to rebuild the community's high school.
Initially, bilking wasn't considered cheating, just good strategy for cribbage players.
Language historians aren't sure where bilk originated,
but they have noticed that its earliest uses occur in contexts relating to the game of cribbage.
Part of the scoring in cribbage involves each player adding cards from their hand to a pile of discards called the crib.
At the end of a hand, the dealer gets any points in the crib.
Strategically then, it's wisest for the dealer's opponents to discard the cards,
most likely to balk or put a check on the dealer's score,
or in other words, the ones least likely to contribute to point making combinations.
Etymologists theorize that Bilk may have originated as an alteration of that card game, Bach.
With your Word of the Day, I'm Peter Sokolowski.