Meanings
berk1
plural berks
- CommonwealthIrelandUKderogatoryslangvulgara fool, a prat, a twit, etc.First known use 1930
However, it appears as if the berk who built the box ran out of wood and has left the end wall off.
1983, Bill Oddie, Gone Birding, London: Methuen, page 1192 more examples
His chat-up techniques have to be read to be imagined—they make the crudest of Loaded-style berks seem classy—and he earns far, far too much money.
2003 July 12, Nicholas Lezard, “Ad execs quoting Gramsci? Only in France”, in The Guardian, →ISSNI don't know why they couldn't just keep it as it was! How hard is it to remember 911? You mean 999... I mean 999! That's the American one! Yeah! You berk.
2006 February 3, Graham Linehan, The IT Crowd, season 1, episode 2Synonyms: fool and idiot
Berk2
- A surname.
Synonyms & antonyms
nouna fool, a prat, a twit, etc.
Origin
berk · noun
Cockney rhyming slang, an ellipsis and clipping of Berkeley Hunt, a prominent hunt at Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire, to mean cunt.
Full word history & related roots →Berk · proper noun
- Proto-West Germanic*berku
- Proto-Germanic*berô“bear”
- EnglishBerk
* As a Dutch, Czech, and Polish surname, from a Germanic personal name stemming from Proto-Germanic *berô (“bear”). Also see Bernhard. * As a Dutch and north German surname, from the word for birch tree, from Proto-West Germanic *berku. * As a Jewish surname, spelling variant of Berg.
More words from Proto-Germanic, Proto-West Germanic
Full word history & related roots →Rhymes & wordplay
Rhymes with berk
Sounds the same
Anagrams
Cite this entry
berk. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/berk
“berk.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/berk. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “berk,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/berk.
Source: berk on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.