yerk

From Middle English ȝerken (“to move suddenly, excite, bind tightly, attack”), from Old English ġearcian (“to prepare, make ready”), compare ġearc (“active, quick”), from Proto-Germanic *garwakōną (“to prepare”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰrebʰ- (“to grab, take”). Cognate with jerk; see yare for more cognates.

• IPA^(key): /jɜː(ɹ)k/

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• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)k

yerk (third-person singular simple present yerks, present participle yerking, simple past and past participle yerked)

1. (transitive, archaic) To stab (someone or something).
   • c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii], page 6:

     To doe no contriu'd mur[t]her; I lacke iniquity / Sometimes to do me ſeruice: nine or ten times, / I had thought to haue ierk'd him here, / Vnder the ribbes.

2. To throw or thrust with a sudden, smart movement; to kick or strike suddenly; to jerk.
   • 1599, William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene vii]:

     Their wounded steeds […] / Yerk out their armed heels at their dead masters.

   • 1627, Michaell Drayton [i.e., Michael Drayton], “The Moone-calfe”, in The Battaile of Agincourt. […], London: […] A[ugustine] M[atthews] for VVilliam Lee, […], published 1631, →OCLC, page 242:

     Vp on a ſuddaine they together ſtart, / And driue at him as faſt as they could ding, / They flirt, they yerke, they backvvard fluce, and fling / As though the Deuill in their heeles had bin, / That to eſcape the danger he vvas in.

3. (obsolete, Scotland) To strike or lash with a whip or stick.
4. (obsolete, Scotland) To rouse or excite.
5. To bind or tie with a jerk.

yerk (plural yerks)

1. (archaic) A sudden or quick thrust or motion; a jerk.

• Krey, Kyer