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35,981 English word records · 45,491 etymology sections in this online subset
PARTIAL ENGLISH COVERAGE · FULL CORPUS REMAINS LOCAL3 source sections across 2 headwords matching “Dirk”. These are separate from the reviewed results below.
DirkEnglish (en) · Unnumbered etymologySource text
Borrowed from Dutch and North German Dirk.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗dirkEnglish (en) · Etymology 1Source text
Etymology unknown, apparently from Scots dirk. First attested in 1602 as dork, in the later 17th century as durk. The spelling dirk is due to Johnson's Dictionary of 1755. Early quotations as well as Johnson 1755 suggest that the word is of Scottish Gaelic origin, but no such Gaelic word is known. The Gaelic name for the weapon is biodag. Gaelic duirc is merely an 18th-century adoption of the English word. A possible derivation is from the North Germanic/Scandinavian personal name Dirk (short for Diederik), which is used of lock-picking tools (but not of knives or daggers). Alternatively a corruption of Low German Dulk, Dolk (“dagger”), ultimately from Proto-West Germanic *dalk, from Proto-Germanic *dulkaz, *dalkaz (“knife, dagger”), related to Saterland Frisian Dolk (“dagger”), West Frisian dolk (“dagger”), Dutch dolk (“dagger”), German Dolch (“dagger”).
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗dirkEnglish (en) · Etymology 3Source text
Unlikely not to have come from the same murky origins as dork, despite sound variation among dick-dirk-dork. Influence from der seems plausibly intermixed.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗INDEPENDENT SOURCE LIBRARY
More sources for this spelling
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Chambers (1908)
1908- DirkEnglish · e-37683-7793
Dirk, dėrk, n. a Highland dagger or poniard: a side-arm worn by midshipmen and cadets of the royal navy.—v.t. to stab with a dirk. [Scot. durk; from the Celt., as in Ir. duirc.]
Read the full source record → - DirkEnglish · e-37683-7794
Dirk, dėrk, adj. (Spens.) dark.—v.t. (Spens.) to darken. [See Dark.]
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