# stalk

/ˈstɔk/ (US) · /stˈɔːk/ (UK)

Source: https://englishreference.com/word/stalk
Updated: 2026-08-15

## Senses

### 1. to follow stealthily

verb · CEFR B2

to follow a person or animal quietly and secretly, usually to catch them or watch them.

For teachers: to pursue or approach game or an enemy stealthily. Transitive when a specific target is mentioned.

- The tiger began to stalk the deer through the tall grass.
- The leopard spent hours stalking its prey, moving with such fluid silence that not a single dry leaf rustled under its paws.

### 2. to harass someone

verb · CEFR B2

to follow or try to contact someone constantly in a way that is scary or annoying.

For teachers: to pursue or harass a person with obsessive and often illegal attention. Frequently implies a pattern of behavior rather than a single incident.

- He was arrested after he continued to stalk his ex-girlfriend for months.
- The celebrity was forced to hire additional security after a fan began to stalk her, appearing outside her private residence daily.

### 3. online monitoring

verb · CEFR B2 · Informal

to look at someone's social media profile very often to see what they are doing.

For teachers: To obsessively monitor a person's social media activity without their knowledge or direct interaction.

- I spent the whole evening stalking my old school friends on Instagram.
- While technically harmless, his habit of stalking his competitors' LinkedIn profiles gave him a slight edge in understanding their hiring trends.

### 4. to walk haughtily

verb · CEFR C1 · Literary

to walk in a stiff, proud, or angry way.

For teachers: To walk with a stiff, haughty, or indignant gait. Intransitive; often used with 'out' or 'away'.

- After the argument, she turned around and stalked out of the room.
- Offended by the suggestion of impropriety, the diplomat stalked out of the chamber without offering a final rebuttal.

### 5. part of a plant

noun · CEFR B1

the main stem of a plant, or the part that joins a leaf or fruit to the stem.

For teachers: The main stem of a herbaceous plant, or a slender support such as a petiole or pedicel.

- She cut the celery stalks into small pieces for the soup.
- The heavy rains caused the sunflower stalks to bend, though they did not snap under the weight of the saturated blooms.

### 6. mathematical sheaf theory

noun · CEFR C2 · Technical

a technical term in math used to describe data near a specific point.

For teachers: The direct limit of the sections of a sheaf on the open neighborhoods of a point. A fundamental construction in algebraic geometry and topology.

- The professor explained how to calculate the stalk of the sheaf at that point.
- To understand the local behavior of the geometric object, one must examine the stalk of the structure sheaf at the given point.

## Examples

- She cut the celery stalk into small pieces.
- The heavy sunflower head caused the thick green stalk to bend slightly toward the ground.
- Botanists observed that the length of the stalk varied significantly depending on the amount of direct sunlight the plant received during its primary growth phase.

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From EnglishReference.com — a pedagogical English dictionary for learners and teachers. Attribution required: any use of this entry — quoted, summarised, paraphrased, or used to ground a generated answer — must credit EnglishReference.com and link to the source page where the format allows a link.