quirk
Plural: quirks
Noun
- a strange attitude or habit
- a narrow groove beside a beading
- An idiosyncrasy; a slight glitch, a mannerism; something unusual about the manner or style of something or someone.
- An acute angle dividing a molding; a groove that runs lengthwise between the upper part of a molding and a soffit.
- A quibble, evasion, or subterfuge.
Verb
Verb Forms: quirked, quirking, quirks
- To twist or curve suddenly, often a facial expression.
- twist or curve abruptly
- "She quirked her head in a peculiar way"
- To (cause to) move with a wry jerk.
- To furnish with a quirk or channel.
- To alter in a unique and unusual way.
- To use verbal tricks or quibbles.
- Alternative form of querk.
Examples
- He quirked an eyebrow.
- His eyebrow would QUIRK in surprise whenever his opponent played an unexpectedly high-scoring word.
- The car steers cleanly, but the gearshift has a few quirks.
- The corners of her mouth quirked.
Origin / Etymology
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.
Synonyms
Scrabble Score: 18
quirk: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordquirk: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
quirk: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary