walk turkey

English

Etymology

From the way a domestic turkey moves, leading with the breast and bobbing back and forth.

Verb

walk turkey (third-person singular simple present walks turkey, present participle walking turkey, simple past and past participle walked turkey)

1. To stagger or move with an ungainly gait.
   • 1888, San Francisco Weekly Examiner:

     Out on the bar the north wind commenced to make the Yaquina walk turkey, standing her up on either end alternately and rolling her both ways at once.

   • 1995 -, Inland Seas - Volume 51, Issue 4, page 29:

     The last time my rubber boots got hooked up in the staysail sheets, and as the sail was full of wind I walked "Turkey" for a little while with both feet in the air.

2. To walk with the chest pushed out in front (often due to being pushed or forced)
   • 1868, Beloit College Monthly - Volume 15, page 140:

     Why, swimming “dog fashion” can bear no comparison with it, while the almost frantic efforts of the young man to keep his toes on term firma, seemed to us a most vivid illustration of the days when the “big boys” used to make us “walk turkey".

   • 1932, The World's Work, page 54:

     As a people we have an insane and deep-rooted preference for noise over harmony, for force over reason, or we should not be taken by the slack of the pants and walked turkey up to the counter,

   • 1935, Pathfinder:

     Amos Hathaway was found by his wife in the poolroom of Charlie Dismer Saturday night and was made to walk turkey right out of there.

   • 1972, Detroit in Perspective - Volumes 1-2, page 39:

     But when they came to be drummed out of camp they had to walk turkey or get a bayonet run into them.

3. (by extension) To obey obsequiously; to toe the line.
   • 1883, Harry Castlemon, The Rod and Gun Club, page 34:

     There are a favored few who are allowed to do as they please ; but the rest of us must walk turkey, or spend our Saturday afternoons in doing extra duty.

   • 1889, Harry Castlemon, True to His Colors, page 192:

     "Jest let him get the grip on you that he got on me, an he'll make the best among ye walk turkey,” Bud retorted sharply.

   • 1907, Typographical Journal - Volume 31, page 62:

     Secretary Brower intends to lay down the law and make delinquents walk turkey.

   • 1915, E. C. Cook, Railway Journal - Volume 21, page 6:

     The legislatures rap them for lower fares, the federal government makes them walk turkey, and they see a man with a gun behind every bunch of grass, whichever way they turn.