What is "to walk the plank"

Plank \Plank\, n. [OE. planke, OF. planque, planche, F. planche, fr. L. planca; cf. Gr. ?, ?, anything flat and broad. Cf. Planch.]

1. A broad piece of sawed timber, differing from a board only in being thicker. See Board.

2. Fig.: That which supports or upholds, as a board does a swimmer.

   His charity is a better plank than the faith of an intolerant and bitter-minded bigot.
   --Southey.

3. One of the separate articles in a declaration of the principles of a party or cause; as, a plank in the national platform. [Cant]

   Plank road, or Plank way, a road surface formed of planks. [U.S.]

   To walk the plank, to walk along a plank laid across the bulwark of a ship, until one overbalances it and falls into the sea; -- a method of disposing of captives practiced by pirates.

Walk \Walk\, v. t.

1. To pass through, over, or upon; to traverse; to perambulate; as, to walk the streets.

   As we walk our earthly round.
   --Keble.

2. To cause to walk; to lead, drive, or ride with a slow pace; as, to walk one's horses; to walk the dog. `` I will rather trust . . . a thief to walk my ambling gelding.''
   --Shak.

3. [AS. wealcan to roll. See Walk to move on foot.] To subject, as cloth or yarn, to the fulling process; to full. [Obs. or Scot.]

4. (Sporting) To put or keep (a puppy) in a walk; to train (puppies) in a walk. [Cant]

5. To move in a manner likened to walking. [Colloq.]

   She walked a spinning wheel into the house, making it use first one and then the other of its own spindling legs to achieve progression rather than lifting it by main force.
   --C. E. Craddock.

   To walk one's chalks, to make off; take French leave.

   To walk the plank, to walk off the plank into the water and be drowned; -- an expression derived from the practice of pirates who extended a plank from the side of a ship, and compelled those whom they would drown to walk off into the water; figuratively, to vacate an office by compulsion.
   --Bartlett.