Some readers will recall that this novel have featured before — more than once. This is, I think, the last from my archive, and a wonderful mangle it is too!
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| Diane Capri, Due Justice (Boise, ID: Stonegate, 2012. Previously published as Carly’s Conspiracy), p. 218. Link: Amazon.co.uk |
I’m not sure what the writer thinks eek means. Certainly she’s not evoking an Middle English word for ‘also’, or having her character make an interjection of surprise. Yet eke, which OED confirms means ‘to lengthen’ or ‘to prolong’ or ‘to supplement’, doesn’t seem to fit the context either.
Merriam Webster, dismissing the meaning related to increasing or lengthening as archaic, offers a single example of modern usage, defining eke as ‘to get with great difficulty — usually used with out <eke out a living>’; and Oxford Dctionaries concurs: ‘eke (eke something out): Make an amount or supply of something last longer by using or consuming it frugally’.
However, this doesn’t seem to be something one can do with a name…
eek out the name
However, this doesn’t seem to be something one can do with a name…
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