Word.ws English Dictionary

firk

/fɜː(ɹ)k/

firk verb: to carry away or about; carry; move.

Verb

firk (third-person singular simple present firks, present participle firking, simple past and past participle firked)

  1. (obsolete, transitive) To carry away or about; carry; move.
  2. (obsolete, transitive) To drive away.
    • I'll fer him, and firk him, and ferret him.1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
  3. (obsolete, transitive) To rouse; raise up.
  4. (intransitive, obsolete) To move quickly; go off or fly out suddenly; turn out.
    • A wench is a rare bait, with which a man / No sooner's taken but he straight firks mad.1610 (first performance), Ben[jamin] Jonson, The Alchemist, London: […] Thomas Snodham, for Walter Burre, and are to be sold by Iohn Stepneth, […], published 1612, →OCLC, (please specify the Internet...
    • Caſt care at thy poſternes; and firke i' thy fetters; / They are ornaments, Baby, haue graced thy betters: […]1616 October or November (first performance), Ben Jonson, The Diuell is an Asse: A Comedie […], London: […] I. B. for Robert Allot, […], published 1631, →OCLC, Act V, scene , page 164

Noun (1)

firk (plural firks)

  1. A stroke; lash.

Noun (2)

firk (plural firks)

  1. (UK, dialectal, obsolete) A freak; trick; quirk.
    • firk o' law1608, Lording Barry, Ram Alley
    • a firk of piety1634, William Davenant, The Wits

Forms of firk

Verb
third-person singular presentfirks
present participlefirking
past participlefirked
pastfirked
alternative formferk
Noun
pluralfirks

Origin of firk

From Middle English firken, ferken (“to proceed, hasten”), from Old English fercian (“to bring, assist, support, carry, conduct, convey, proceed”), from Proto-West Germanic *farikōn, frequentative of Proto-Germanic *faraną (“to travel, fare”). Akin to Old English faran (“to fare, go”), English fare; if so, equivalent to fare + -k. Cognate with Old High German fuora (“benefit, sustenance, support”), Swabian fergen, ferken (“to bring, dispatch”).

Probably an alteration of freak.

Words formed from firk

  • firkery

Words that rhyme with firk

35 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about firk

What does firk mean?
Firk means to carry away or about; carry; move.
What part of speech is firk?
Firk can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce firk?
Firk is pronounced /fɜː(ɹ)k/.
What is the past tense of firk?
The past tense of firk is firked.

Words near firk in the dictionary

  1. Firinghee
  2. Firinghees
  3. firingi
  4. firingis
  5. firings
  6. firk
  7. firka
  8. firkas
  9. firked
  10. firkin
  11. firking

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: firk (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-firk.wav.

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