quirk

quirk · noun, verb¹

1. Old Norse · derived fromkvirkja“to choke, strangle”
2. Middle English · inherited fromquerken
3. Proto-Indo-European · derived from*gʷerh₃-“to devour; maw”
4. Proto-Germanic · derived from*kwerkō“throat, gullet”
5. Old Norse · derived fromkverk“a bend or angle, especially below a cross-beam or below the chin, the bight of an axe", also "throat, gullet”
6. Middle English · inherited from*querk
7. English todayquirk

First attested in the 1540s. Of uncertain origin. Possibly from Middle English *querk, from Old Norse kverk (“a bend or angle, especially below a cross-beam or below the chin, the bight of an axe", also "throat, gullet”), from Proto-Germanic *kwerkō (“throat, gullet”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷerh₃- (“to devour; maw”). Cognate with Scots querk (“throat", also "any hollow in the body, such as an armpit, groin, instep, etc.”), Icelandic kverk (“interior angle”). Also partially from dialectal quirk, querk (“a whim, fancy, fuss, huff, complaint", also "to peevishly grumble, grunt, sigh, croak, die”), from Middle English querken, *quirken (“to choke”), from Old Norse kvirkja (“to choke, strangle”), from the same origin above. Related to dialectal querken, quirken (“to choke”). Likely not related to queer.

Quirk · proper noun²

Irish and Manx surname, Anglicized from Ó Cuirc (“descendant of Corc”), a personal name derived from curc (“tuft of hair”). It was sometimes Anglicized as Oates due to an erroneous association with coirce (“oats”). Sometimes also a shortened variant of McGuirk.

Words from the same roots