shirk
/ʃɜːk//ʃɝk/
shirk verb: to avoid, especially a duty, responsibility, etc.; to stay away from.
Verb
shirk (third-person singular simple present shirks, present participle shirking, simple past and past participle shirked)
- To avoid, especially a duty, responsibility, etc.; to stay away from.
- the usual makeshift by which they try to shirk difficulties1826, Julius Hare, Guesses at Truth by Two Brothers
- Back in school, you ever get busted for trynna walk and have some administrator tell you / "Son, you can shirk your obligations, / and try to be different from your peers, / but responsibility, your future / is gonna find you!"1989, “Gonna Find You”, in Operation Ivy (CD), performed by Operation Ivy, Lookout Records, →OCLC
- To evade an obligation; to avoid the performance of duty, as by running away.
- If you have a job, don't shirk from it by staying off work.
- September 7, 1830, Lord Byron, letter to Mr. Murray
One of the cities shirked from the league.
- To procure by petty fraud and trickery; to obtain by mean solicitation.
- You that never heard the call of any vocation, […] that shirk living from others, but time from yourselves.1635, Bishop Rainbow, Sermons
Noun (1)
shirk (plural shirks)
- One who shirks, who avoids a duty or responsibility.
- I may add here that, coming as the soldiers did from all avocations and stations in life, these details for fatigue often brought together men few of whom had any practical knowledge of the work in hand; so that aside from the shirks, who could work but would not, there were other who would but...1887, John Davis Billings, Hardtack and Coffee, Or, The Unwritten Story of Army Life, pages 101–102
- Synonyms:
- dodger
Noun (2)
shirk (uncountable)
- The unforgivable sin of association (claiming something or someone can share in the oneness of God).
- A person can have committed shirk in their lifetime and still find forgiveness (especially by saying the Shahada and becoming a Muslim). The concept is that if one dies in this state (as a mushrik, an idolator, one who engages in and does not repent shirk), there is no forgiveness.2013, James R. White, What Every Christian Needs to Know About the Qur'an, Baker Books, →ISBN
Proper noun capitalized: Shirk
Shirk (plural Shirks)
- A surname.
shirk meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam
shirk in Tamil
- உதறித்தள்ளு, தட்டிக்கழி, தவிர், தப்பிக்க முயல்
shirk in Urdu
- آج کل کرنا, بہانہ کرنا, جی چرانا, پہلو تہی کرنا
shirk in Bengali
- কাজ এড়ানো, ফাঁকি দেওয়া
shirk in Malayalam
- ജോലി ഉഴപ്പുക, പരിഹസിക്കുക, ഒഴിഞ്ഞുമാറുക, പരിത്യജിക്കുക
More languagesFewer languages
- shirk in Kannada
- ಜಾರಿಕೊಳ್ಳು, ತಪ್ಪಿಸಿಕೊಳ್ಳು, ಸ್ವಾರ್ಥದಿಂದ ಹಿಂತೆಗೆ, ಹೊಣೆತಪ್ಪಿಸು
- shirk in Vietnamese
- trốn tránh
Examples of shirk in a sentence
- Coalworker's pneumoconiosis is a compensable disease in various countries, and it is a preventable disease where the costs of its prevention are not shirked as externalities.
- Every move in her career appears to be one more shirking of categorization.
- If clerks do not try to shirk their work, our whole great commercial system breaks down.
Synonyms of shirk
7 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of shirk
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | shirks |
| present participle | shirking |
| past participle | shirked |
| past | shirked |
| Noun | |
| plural | shirks |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Shirks |
Origin of shirk
First use appears c. 1633, in the publications of Shackerley Marmion, apparently from association with shark (verb), or otherwise directly from German Schurke (“rogue, knave”).
Borrowed from Arabic شِرْك (širk).
Words formed from shirk
Words that rhyme with shirk
Questions about shirk
- What does shirk mean?
- Shirk means to avoid, especially a duty, responsibility, etc.; to stay away from.
- What is shirk in Tamil?
- Shirk in Tamil is உதறித்தள்ளு, தட்டிக்கழி, தவிர். See Shirk meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is shirk?
- Shirk can be a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce shirk?
- Shirk is pronounced /ʃɜːk/ (UK).
- What is the past tense of shirk?
- The past tense of shirk is shirked.
Words near shirk in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: shirk (page history and authors); Shirk (page history and authors); shirk (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); shirk (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); shirk (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); shirk (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); shirk (Kannada Wiktionary) (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: en-us-shirk.ogg, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-shirk (Islam).wav.
Cite this entry: “shirk.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/shirk. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.