noun

• (obsolete except British, dialectal) An addition.
  "[T]hey [the Catholics and Puritans] encumbered their verſion [of the Bible] with a load of uſeleſs Italics; often without the leaſt neceſſity, and almoſt always to the detriment of the text. In fact, either the words in Italics are virtually implied in the Hebrew, or they are not. In the former caſe they are a real part of the text, and ſhould be printed in the ſame character: in the latter, they are generally ill aſſorted and clumſy ekes, that may well be ſpared; and which often disfigure the narration under pretence of connecting it."
• (beekeeping, archaic) A small stand on which a beehive is placed.
  "Various have been the contrivances for effecting the separation of storage and breeding departments in a hive. […] An empty box or hive, pushed beneath a full one, is denominated a Nadir,—a mode of practice not always advisable except in the case of swarms of the same year, or towards the latter end of very abundant seasons. A still smaller addition to a common hive consists of merely a few bands of straw, on which it is raised temporarily, and this constitutes an eke. […] The entrance to the stock-hive must be stopped, and one made at the bottom of the eke or nadir."
• (beekeeping) A spacer put between or over or under hive parts to make more space.

verb

• (transitive) Chiefly in the form eke out: to add to, to augment; to increase; to lengthen.
  "Is not enough, that thruſt from heauen dew / Here endleſſe penaunce for one fault I pay, / But that redoubled crime with vengeaunce new / Thou biddeſt me to eeke?"

adv

• (archaic) Also; in addition to.
  "The ſoote [i.e., sweet] ſeaſon, that bud and blome forth brings, / With grene hath clad the hill, and eke the vale: […]"