Word.ws English Dictionary

perken

perken verb: to make or become perked or perky.

Verb

perken (third-person singular simple present perkens, present participle perkening, simple past and past participle perkened)

  1. (ambitransitive, nonstandard) To make or become perked or perky.
    • Us perkened so, staring at each other, not rightly knowing one the other—such a goodly percentage of familiar skin now been quenched back of hiding cloth.2001, Allan Gurganus, Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All, page 599
    • She saw him and kind of perkened up [perked up] her gait a little bit.2009, Mariella Glenn Hartsfield, Tall Betsy and Dunce Baby, page 72
    Synonyms:
    perk

Synonyms of perken

Forms of perken

third-person singular presentperkens
present participleperkening
past participleperkened
pastperkened

Origin of perken

From perk + -en.

Questions about perken

What does perken mean?
Perken means to make or become perked or perky.
What part of speech is perken?
Perken is a verb.
What is the past tense of perken?
The past tense of perken is perkened.

Words near perken in the dictionary

  1. perked one's ears
  2. perked out
  3. perked up
  4. perked up one's ears
  5. perkedel
  6. perken
  7. perkened
  8. perkening
  9. perkens
  10. Perkey
  11. Perkeys

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: perken (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.

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