Word.ws English Dictionary

yirk

yirk is the alternative form of yerk.

Meaning of yerk

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...
  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.

See all 6 meanings of yerk

Forms of yirk

Verb
third-person singular presentyirks
present participleyirking
past participleyirked
pastyirked
Noun
pluralyirks

Questions about yirk

What is yirk the alternative form of?
Yirk is the alternative form of yerk.

Words near yirk in the dictionary

  1. yippy-kai-yay
  2. yips
  3. yir
  4. Yir-Yoront
  5. yirdaki
  6. yirk
  7. yirked
  8. yirking
  9. yirks
  10. yirmilik
  11. yirmiliks

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: yirk (page history and authors); yerk (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: “yirk.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/yirk. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.