ilk

Etymology

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”). Akin to Dutch lichaam, or lijk, body, dead 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’.

adj

1. (Scotland and Northern England) Very; same.

noun

1. A type, race or category; a group of entities that have common characteristics such that they may be grouped together.
   The cow is of the bovine ilk; One end is moo, the other, milk. 1931, Ogden Nash, The Cow
   On the surface, the film is a globe-trotting gross-out caper in which Nobby, who's from a hellish version of the titular Lincolnshire town ("twinned with Chernobyl"), is reunited with his long-lost brother Sebastian (Mark Strong), who has become a spy for the British secret services. That makes him a servant of the powers-that-be that have no time for Nobby and his scrounging ilk. 23 February 2016, Robbie Collin, “Grimsby review: ' Sacha Baron Cohen's vital, venomous action movie'”, in The Daily Telegraph (London)