What is the etymology of the word "shanked"? [closed]

Solution 1:

Shanks did indeed mean legs - Edward Longshanks was called that for a reason: he was tall and had long legs. It was also used for the narrowest part of a golf club.

In 1816, it was used to mean to send off without ceremony. Perhaps the prison meaning of getting shanked derives from this unceremonious sending off.

The shank (either the part of the leg between the knee and ankle, or the whole) tapers from top to bottom, and perhaps the shank part of something (a toothbrush, for example) might be the part of something transformed into the weapon a shank.

The etymology of shank as a knife or a verb is not quite clear. [edited to add the comment about the tibia being a good bone from which to make bone knives, the tibia being a shank bone. HT to TK-421]

Solution 2:

Shank: was used to refer also to the shinbone, a bone of the lower part of the leg that may be used as a weapon. (from Etymonline).

Old English sceanca "leg, shank, shinbone," specifically, the part of the leg from the knee to the ankle, from Proto-Germanic *skankon- (cognates: Middle Low German schenke, German schenkel "shank, leg"), perhaps literally "that which bends," from PIE root *skeng- "crooked" (cognates: Old Norse skakkr "wry, distorted," Greek skazein "to limp"). Shank's mare "one's own legs as a means of transportation" is attested from 1774 (shanks-naig).

The Urban Dictionary suggests its origin as a verb meaning stabbed as prison slang.

Shanked, shank.

orgin: prison slang

• shanked: to be stabbed with a homemade knife.

• made out of scrap of metal found anywhere and sharpend like a knife. and bottom tightly wrapped with a cloth as a handle.

• Probably in the past in prisons shinbones were adapted and used as knives.