dirk

dirk · noun, verb¹

1. Proto-Germanic · derived from*dulkaz
2. Proto-West Germanic · derived from*dalk
3. Low German · borrowed fromDulk
4. Scots · borrowed fromdirk
5. English todaydirk

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”).

dirk · noun²

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.

Dirk · proper noun³

1. German · borrowed fromDirk
2. English todayDirk

Borrowed from Dutch and North German Dirk.