Word.ws English Dictionary

yerk

/jɜː(ɹ)k/

yerk verb: to stab (someone or something).

Verb

yerk (third-person singular simple present yerks, present participle yerking, simple past and past participle yerked)

  1. (archaic, transitive) To stab (someone or something).
    • To doe no contriu'd mur[t]her; I lacke iniquity / Sometimes to do me ſeruice: nine or ten times, / I had thought to haue ierk'd him here, / Vnder the ribbes.c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac...
    Synonyms:
    foin, speet, chef, chib, ching, chive, enthrill, gore, gride, jab
  2. To throw or thrust with a sudden, smart movement; to kick or strike suddenly; to jerk.
    • Their wounded steeds […] / Yerk out their armed heels at their dead masters.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...
    • Vp on a ſuddaine they together ſtart, / And driue at him as faſt as they could ding, / They flirt, they yerke, they backvvard fluce, and fling / As though the Deuill in their heeles had bin, / That to eſcape the danger he vvas in.1627, Michaell [i.e., Michael] Drayton, “[Elegies upon Sundry Occasions.]”, in The Battaile of Agincourt. […], London: […] [Augustine Matthews] for William Lee, […], →OCLC, page 242
  3. (Scotland, obsolete) To strike or lash with a whip or stick.
    Synonyms:
    slash, whip
  4. (Scotland, obsolete) To rouse or excite.
  5. To bind or tie with a jerk.

Noun

yerk (plural yerks)

  1. (archaic) A sudden or quick thrust or motion; a jerk.
    • Imagine twenty thouſand of them breaking into the midſt of an European Army, confounding the Ranks, overturning the Carriages, battering the Warriors Faces into Mummy, by terrible Yerks from their hinder Hoofs.1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], “The Author’s Veracity. His Design in Publishing this Work. […]”, in Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], volume II, London...

yerk meaning in Urdu

yerk in Urdu

گتھی لگانا, لات مارنا, سرگرمی سے کام کرنا, پیٹنا

Synonyms of yerk

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of yerk

Forms of yerk

Verb
third-person singular presentyerks
present participleyerking
past participleyerked
pastyerked
Noun
pluralyerks

Origin of yerk

From Middle English ȝerken (“to move suddenly, excite, bind tightly, attack”), from Old English ġearcian (“to prepare, make ready”), compare ġearc (“active, quick”). Cognate with jerk; see yare for more cognates.

Words that rhyme with yerk

35 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about yerk

What does yerk mean?
Yerk means to stab (someone or something).
What is yerk in Urdu?
Yerk in Urdu is گتھی لگانا, لات مارنا, سرگرمی سے کام کرنا. See Yerk meaning in Urdu.
What part of speech is yerk?
Yerk can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce yerk?
Yerk is pronounced /jɜː(ɹ)k/.
What is the past tense of yerk?
The past tense of yerk is yerked.

Words near yerk in the dictionary

  1. yeridahs
  2. yeridas
  3. yeridot
  4. Yering
  5. Yerington
  6. yerk
  7. yerked
  8. Yerkes
  9. Yerkes-Dodson law
  10. yerking
  11. Yerkish

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: yerk (page history and authors); yerk (Urdu 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.

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

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