Turk
English
Alternative forms
- Turke (obsolete)
Etymology
From Old French Turc, from Medieval Latin Turcus, from Turkish Türk, from Old Turkic 𐱅𐰇𐰼𐰜 (t²ür²k̥ /türük/).
Pronunciation
- (General American) IPA(key): /tɝk/
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /tɜːk/
- Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)k
Noun
Turk (plural Turks)
- A person from Turkey or of Turkish ethnic descent.
- A speaker of the various Turkic languages.
- (obsolete) A Muslim.
- c. 1600 – 1602, William Shakespeare, Hamlet Act 3, Scene 2:
- Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers—if the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me—with two Provincial roses on my razed shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry of players?
- 1603, John Florio, transl.; Michel de Montaigne, chapter 12, in The Essayes, […], book II, printed at London: By Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], OCLC 946730821:
- Compare but our manners unto a Turke [transl. Mahometan], or a Pagan, and we must needs yeeld unto them […].
- Chillingworth
- It is no good reason for a man's religion that he was born and brought up in it; for then a Turk would have as much reason to be a Turk as a Christian to be a Christian.
- (archaic) A bloodthirsty and savage person; vandal; barbarian.[1] [from 16th c.]
- 1579, John Lyly, Euphues, page 42:
- Was neuer any Impe so wicked and barbarous, any Turke so vyle and brutishe.
- 1760, Tobias George Smollett (editor), The Critical Review: Or, Annals of Literature, Volume 9, page 20:
- A sort of primitive barbarity distinguishes the whole; no variety of character appears; and to call a man Turk is to say, that he is jealous, haughty, covetous, ignorant, and lascivious; at the same time that a certain dignity of gait, and magnificence of manners, gives him the appearance of generosity and true greatness of soul.
- 1987, Anne Mozley, Essays from "Blackwood", page 21:
- A bad temper does seem often favourable to health. The man who has been a Turk all his life lives long to plague all about him.
- 1906, George Meredith, One of our conquerors, page 292:
- As much as the wilfully or naturally blunted, the intelligently honest have to learn by touch: only, their understandings cannot meanwhile be so wholly obtuse as our society's matron, acting to please the tastes of the civilized man—a creature that is not clean-washed of the Turk in him—barbarously exacts.
- 1928, Luṫfī Levonian, Moslem mentality: a discussion of the presentation of Christianity to Moslems, page 85:
- They regarded the very word Turk as synonymous with ignorance, impoliteness, and idiocy. To call a man 'Turk' was regarded as a great dishonour to him.
- 1579, John Lyly, Euphues, page 42:
- (US, slang) A homosexual, assuming the active role in anal sex.
- 1938, Aaron Joshua Rosanoff, Manual of psychiatry and mental hygiene, page 159:
- The clannishness of homosexuals has led to the development of special slang expressions among them: Temperamental or queer, a homosexual person. Turk, wolf, or jocker, an active sodomist.
- 1993, Jonathon Green, Slang down the ages: the historical development of slang, page 231:
- […] turd-packer, hitchhiker on the Hershey highway (fr. the US Hershey chocolate bars), shirt-lifter (Australian), wind-jammer, fart-catcher, dirt tamper, pillow-biter and Turk (fr. the alleged national propensity for sodomy).
- 2006, Deborah Cameron, On language and sexual politics, page 35:
- One of the many underworld synonyms for an active pederast is turk.
- 1938, Aaron Joshua Rosanoff, Manual of psychiatry and mental hygiene, page 159:
- A member of a Mestee group in South Carolina.
- A person from Llanelli, Wales.
- A Turkish horse.
- The plum curculio.
Derived terms
Translations
a person from Turkey
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a speaker of the various Turkic languages
Muslim — see Muslim
bloodthirsty and savage person
References
- “Turk” in The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989, →ISBN.
Dutch
Pronunciation
Audio (file) - Rhymes: -ʏrk
Related terms
Anagrams
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