Word.ws English Dictionary

dawk

/dɔːk/

dawk verb: to drive a sharp instrument into; incise with a jerk; puncture. Also the alternative form of dak.

Verb

dawk (third-person singular simple present dawks, present participle dawking, simple past and past participle dawked)

  1. (UK, dialectal, transitive) To drive a sharp instrument into; incise with a jerk; puncture.
  2. (transitive) To cut or mark with an incision; gash.
  3. (UK, dialectal, transitive) To dig up weeds.

Noun (1)

dawk (plural dawks)

  1. A hollow or crack in timber.
    • THE DAWK was a slight concavity or depression in the body of the cast type , made by a corresponding convexity in the mould1677–1683, Joseph Moxon, “(please specify the page)”, in Mechanick Exercises, or The Doctrine of Handy-Works, […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: […] Joseph Moxon, published...

Noun (2)

dawk (plural dawks)

  1. A person who advocates neither an aggressive nor a conciliatory political attitude (especially in foreign policy).
    • In the analysis that follows, I shall explore the foreign policy views of three distinct factions within the Chinese elite: “hawks, doves, and dawks.” In my view, the “dawks,” “centrists,” or more precisely, Maoists, have won.1967, Donald S. Zagoria, “Peking’s Hawks, Doves, and Dawks” (chapter 3), in Vietnam Triangle: Moscow, Peking, Hanoi, New York, N.Y.: Pegasus, →LCCN, page 67

Also used as

dawk is also the alternative form of dak.

dawk is also the archaic form of dhak.

Forms of dawk

Verb
third-person singular presentdawks
present participledawking
past participledawked
pastdawked
Noun
pluraldawks

Origin of dawk

Ultimately from Old English dalc (“pin”). More at dalk.

Blend of dove + hawk. Coined by American author Donald S. Zagoria in 1967 (see quotation).

Phrases with dawk

Words that rhyme with dawk

11 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about dawk

What does dawk mean?
Dawk means to drive a sharp instrument into; incise with a jerk; puncture.
What part of speech is dawk?
Dawk can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce dawk?
Dawk is pronounced /dɔːk/.
What is the past tense of dawk?
The past tense of dawk is dawked.

Words near dawk in the dictionary

  1. Dawida
  2. dawing
  3. dawings
  4. Dawis
  5. dawish
  6. dawk
  7. dawk bungalow
  8. dawk bungalows
  9. dawked
  10. Dawkes
  11. Dawkin

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dawk (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “dawk.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dawk. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.