dirk

Etymology unknown, apparently from Scots. First attested in 1602 as dork, in the later 17th century as durk. The spelling dirk is due to Johnson's Dictionary of 1755.

Early quotations as well as Johnson 1755 suggest that the word is of Scottish Gaelic origin, but no such Gaelic word is known. The Gaelic name for the weapon is biodag. Gaelic duirc is merely an 18th-century adoption of the English word.

A possible derivation is from the Scandinavian personal name Dirk (short for Diederik), which is used of lock-picking tools (but not of knives or daggers). Another possibility is that dork originates as a sailor's or soldier's corruption of dolk, the Dutch and Scandinavian form of German Dolch (“dagger”).

The American slang term may be a variant of dick (“penis”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /dɜːk/
• Rhymes: -ɜː(r)k

dirk (plural dirks)

1. A long Scottish dagger with a straight blade.
   • 1883, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

     In half a minute he had reached the port scuppers, and picked, out of a coil of rope, a long knife, or rather a short dirk, discolored to the hilt with blood.

2. (US, Midwest, dated, slang) A penis; dork.
   • May 1964, Lawrence Poston, "Some Problems in the Study of Campus Slang", American Speech volume 39, issue 2

     The word dick itself serves as model for two variants which are probably Midwestern, dirk and dork, also meaning "penis"...

3. (US, Midwest, dated, slang) A socially unacceptable person; an oddball.
   • May 1964, Lawrence Poston, "Some Problems in the Study of Campus Slang", American Speech volume 39, issue 2

     ...on at least one Midwestern campus a dirk may be an "oddball" student, while a prick (more common) is of course an offensive one.

dirk (third-person singular simple present dirks, present participle dirking, simple past and past participle dirked)

1. To stab with a dirk.
   • 1820, Sir Walter Scott, The Abbot‎, Chapter the Fourth:

     Roland Graeme has dirked Adam Woodstock — that is all.” ¶ “Good Heaven!” said the Lady, turning pale as ashes, “is the man slain?”

   • 1825, James Kirke Paulding, John Bull in America; or, the New Munchausen‎, page 127:

     For these offenses, I was informed privately, by a worthy English settler, who had been like me seduced by Mr. Birkbeck, they had hired a man to dirk me for ten dollars, the usual price of blood in this country, as Mr. Chichester says.

2. (obsolete) To darken.
   • c. 1378, Geoffrey Chaucer (translator), Boece, Book I:
     • The beaute the whiche clothes a derknesse of a forleten and despised elde hadde duskid and dirked, as it is wont to dirken besmokede ymages
   • 1579, Edmund Spenser, The Shepheardes Calender‎, page 34:

     Thy wast bignes but combers the grownd, / And dirks the beauty of my blossomes rownd.

dirk

1. imperative of dirka

• durk

dirk (plural dirks)

1. dirk

dirk (third-person singular present dirks, present participle dirkin, past dirkt, past participle dirkt)

1. dirk