Interesting Words : ‘Cankles’

Even I sometimes sometimes learn new words that have entered the English language! In this case, the word is rooted in the unfortunate American epidemic of obesity!!

If you happen to be overweight and a woman, you might worry about your cankles! What are cankles!? Well, if you cannot tell where your calves (‘calf’ in the singular - les mollets) stop and your ankles (les chevilles) start, then you have cankles! The word comes from combining the word “calf’ and '”ankle.”

It is unknown when or how the word first was born but it became well known from an episode of Friends back in 1995. Cankles have become such a problem that some women are opting for plastic surgery to get rid of them. Others are going to the gym to start exercising. Some gyms even dedicate an entire month to the cankle problem!

Men can have this problem too! In a TV episode of Weeds back in 2007, “man cankles” were described as “mankles!”