ilk
n.a group of people or things that are similar to each other. You use this to describe a specific type of person or object.
n.a group or class of people or things of a particular type. Often used in the phrase 'of the same ilk' to indicate similarity in nature or quality.
“The company decided to stop producing cars of that ilk and focus on more modern, electric vehicles.”
“The historian argued that the two leaders were of a different ilk, as one was driven by personal ambition while the other sought collective prosperity for his nation.”
Inherited from Middle English ilke, from Old English ilca, conjectured as from Proto-Germanic ilīkaz, a compound of iz and -līkaz from the noun līką (“body”). The sense of “type”, “kind” is from the application of the phrase of that ilk to families: the word thus came to mean family.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.