perk

plural perks · alternative perq

1. informalPerquisite.

   Free coffee is one of the perks of the job.

2. video gamesA bonus ability that a player character can acquire; a permanent power-up.

present singular third person perks · participle present perking · participle past perked · past perked

1. informaltransitiveTo make (coffee) in a percolator or a drip coffeemaker.

   I’ll perk some coffee.

2. informalintransitiveOf coffee: to be produced by heated water seeping (“percolating”) through coffee grounds.

   The coffee is perking.

   1 more example

   While the coffee perked, she flipped idly through a gardening magazine and scanned an article on the war against aphids.

   1996, Sherry Lewis, This Montana Home, Harlequin Books, page 288

plural perks

1. A percolator, particularly of coffee.

present singular third person perks · participle present perking · participle past perked · past perked

1. transitiveTo make trim or smart; to straighten up; to erect; to make a jaunty or saucy display of.

   [the squirrel] whisks his brush And perks his ears, and stamps and scolds aloud

   1785, William Cowper, The Task, London: J. Johnson, Book 6, p. 247

   1 more example

   The blue jay was having a fit, and the sapsucker perked his bright-eyed little head at him not more than a dozen feet away.

   1924, James Oliver Curwood, chapter 4, in A Gentleman of Courage, Toronto: Copp Clark

2. intransitiveTo appear from below or behind something, emerge, pop up, poke out.

   1842, Robert Browning, “The Pied Piper of Hamelin” in Lyrics of Life, Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1866, pp. 35-36, lines 152-153, […] suddenly up the face Of the Piper perked in the market-place,

   3 more examples

   The heads of plants above the crack’d ground perk:

   1640, John Gower, transl., Ovid’s Festivalls, Cambridge, Book 4, April, p. 77

   A white Paris net sort of cap, glittering with spangles, and incircled by a chaplet of artificial flowers, with a little white feather perking from the left ear, is to be my head-dress.

   1753, Samuel Richardson, The History of Sir Charles Grandison, London, Volume 1, Letter 22, p. 159

   1937 Robert Byron, The Road to Oxiana, London: Macmillan, Part 4, “Kavar,” p. 159, A strong warm wind carried a sound of chopping with it and a rustle of dead plane-leaves; through those leaves perked the green crooks of young ferns.

3. intransitiveobsoleteTo exalt oneself; to bear oneself loftily.

   […] our Lord had never any such design, to set up a sort of men in such distance above their brethren; to perk over them, and suck them of their goods by tricks […]

   1683, Isaac Barrow, A Treatise of the Pope’s Supremacy, London: Brabazon Aylmer, Supposition 5, page 140

   1 more example

   1574, Arthur Golding (translator), Sermons of Master John Calvin, upon the Booke of Job, London: Lucas Harison and George Byshop, Sermon 38, The first upon the tenth Chapter, For whereof commeth thys hypocrisie in the popedome, that men shall preache free will, merits, and satisfactions, and set vp their bristles in suche wise, and beare themselues in hande that they may come perking before God, yea and preace thither lyke shamelesse strumpets.

comparative more perk · superlative most perk

1. obsoleteSmart; trim; spruce; jaunty; vain.

   All, joy’d at th’ omen, their foundation laid: And in short time a perk new wall is made.

   1640, John Gower, transl., Ovid’s Festivalls, Cambridge, Book 4, April, p. 96

   1 more example

   My ragged rontes all shiver and shake, As doen high Towers in an earthquake: They wont in the wind wagge their wrigle tailes, Perke as Peacock: but nowe it auales.

   1579, Edmund Spenser, “Februarie”, in The Shepheardes Calender, London: Hugh Singleton

present singular third person perks · participle present perking · participle past perked · past perked

1. datedTo peer; to look narrowly, sharply, or inquisitively.

   He is a tall, thin, bony man, with an interrogative nose, and little restless perking eyes, which appear to have been given him for the sole purpose of peeping into other people’s affairs with.

   1835, Charles Dickens, “The Election for Beadle”, in Sketches by Boz, 3rd edition, volume 1, London: John Macrone, published 1837, page 32

2. dialectalTo examine thoroughly.

present singular third person perks · participle present perking · participle past perked · past perked

1. obsoleteTo perch.

   O! what a ravishment ’thad beene, to see Thy little Saviour perking on thy Knee!

   1633, Francis Quarles, “On the Infancie of our Saviour”, in Divine Fancies Digested into Epigrammes, Meditations, and Observations, London: John Marriot, page 3

   4 more examples

   His seconde hawke wexyd gery And was with flyenge wery. She had flowyn so oft, That on the rode loft She perkyd her to rest.

   c. 1503–1512, John Skelton, Ware the Hauke; republished in John Scattergood, editor, John Skelton: The Complete English Poems, 1983, →OCLC, page 63, lines 66–70

   Then sir, let me say, that Mineruas owle was proude, for perking vnder [h]ir golden target […]

   1591, Robert Greene, Greenes Farewell to Folly, London: T. Gubbin & T. Newman

   With respect to walking, it is the favourite exercise of my life; I sometimes divert myself with objects on the road, which, my being on a level with them, offers to observation; and yet, which, had I been perked up beyond my natural height on the back of a horse, would have been all overlooked.

   1779, Samuel Jackson Pratt, chapter 24, in Shenstone-Green: or, the New Paradise Lost, volume 1, London: R. Baldwin, pages 205–206

   Laugh out in the loose green jerkin / That’s fit for a goddess to work in, / With shoulders brown, / And the wheaten crown / About thy temples perking.

   1814, Leigh Hunt, The Descent of Liberty, a Mask, London: […] Gale, Curtis, and Fenner, […], published 1815, →OCLC, scene III, page 64