Definitions
Etymologies
- The usage is dated to the 1930s. A shortened version of Berkeley Hunt, the hunt based at Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire. In the Cockney rhyming slang, hunt is used as a rhyme for cunt giving the word berk its original slang meaning. (Wiktionary)
Examples
“Byrne is a 'berk' living, high off the hog, in 'Berkland'.”
“It was a load of disappointingly patronising guff about how "woman is closer to the rhythms of Earth" and stuff like that, and it predisposed me against him as a bit of a sanctimonious berk.”
“Mustnt you feel a berk if you had voted for any of the thieving plonkers! on March 24, 2009 at 8: 35 pm | Reply Jim”
“There are also plenty of songs in which one could argue that the singer or narrator comes across as a bit of a berk.”
“However, just the thought of waking up, to find some Xbox-ing berk on the next pillow, asking if he can use the phone to tell his mum where he is, is surely enough to make the most voracious cougar want to retire quietly to the next room and hang herself with her support tights.”
The Guardian: Good luck to Caroline Flack. She'll need it | Barbara Ellen
“While Nicholson, the berk, has always relished the Postman gossip, Sutherland has staunchly denied the rumours and defended Christie.”
The Guardian: Geoff Boycott's sensitive side… it's so well hidden | Barbara Ellen
“Oh, get to work, you scrounging berk!" many viewers will scream.”
“And,and,and,and,all you can hope for,is some footage of a hapless berk of a shelf stacker,dumping a zillion bottles of zindfandel all over the floor of a convenience store.”
“What's more he's a SILLY berk. have you heard the wishy-washy pretty-pretty sub-liberal hogwash he puts out as his beliefs?”
“Was there ever better proof that the wrong kit can mark you out as a complete berk at worst and a ski ingenue at best?”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘berk’.
-
WWF WTF?
Ever play "Words With Friends" with someone and they throw down some strange, unlikely group of letters that makes even the most mild and squeaky clean tongued person say "whiskey tango foxtrot"? ...
oorie, sangar, merl, cwm, doum, weir, jura, invar, lawine, tapa, waw, shog and 376 more...
-
rhyming slang
nelson eddys, apples and pears, whistle and flute, trouble and strife, berkeley hunt, jam jar, dog and bone, butchers' hook, barnet fair, boat race, bird lime, aryton senna and 26 more...
-
Words beginning with B
birefringence, bureau, blot, barter, beyond, blunder, byre, byrgius, bowl, baste, bastardsawed, bastel house and 44 more...
-
Reading Reading
Words from the works of Peter Reading - at least one from each (except the Schwitters-esque erosions, cut-ups etc).
overbright, pimpled, muskiness, effuse, stoup, maul, unlevel, viscid, perfidious, glibly, aloes, drouth and 449 more...
-
ElRojo
R. Peter Jackson's list
cantillation, jackstaff, pullulate, whoremonger, colloquy, batman, anathema, idiosyncratic, facilitation, sympathy, empathy, satrap and 135 more...
-
A spoonful of sugar
Words I should learn/I want to learn/I just learned, with a quotation to help the medicine go down.
approbation, assuage, chicanery, abscond, effrontery, enervation, equivocate, ennui, aftertaste, filibuster, perfunctory, abide and 391 more...
-
British Cant & Slang, Old & New
Mostly, the cant words come from my reprint of Francis Grose's 1785 dictionary of 'The Vulgar Tongue', while the more modern slang has been found at various online sources, e.g. this online diction...
bog-standard, bumbaclot, brown trouser moment, bingo wings, bobfoc, babber, sweating, tantadlin tart, taplash, timber toe, tray trip, twiddle-diddles and 209 more...
-
rememberers
prolix, ageusia, animadversion, anodyne, antic, arabesque, beadle, brachymetropia, colophon, desquamation, diaphoresis, diegesis and 3251 more...
-
Nice colloquialisms / my idiolect
hack rag, duck, irrelephant, golly, cripes, struth, breastful, i like cheese, lostwithiel, shiny, spiffer, spifftastic and 17 more...
-
Good words
Words I like.
unacceptable, sprezzatura, milquetoast, antinomianism, gossamer, filigree, louche, crepuscular, whorish, blogorrhea, cruciverbalist, eleemosynary and 68 more...
-
Duped
Those who are easily duped.
cully, cull, gudgeon, gull, gull-gallant, chouse, geck, chump, fall guy, mark, fool, mug and 39 more...
-
Informal
canary, wishy-washy, brummie, veep, kludge, beaut, moniker, humongous, tushie, ponce, Chinaman, cocky and 44 more...
-
Bill Bryson's Agreeable Words
These are words Mr. Bryson thinks sound especially nice, or are perfect for what they describe.
granola, globule, scrapie, snooze, chortle, clank, grasp, dribble, bloat, galoshes, pandemonium, transubstantiation and 18 more...
-
Selected words from the Queen's English
British words/phrases/slang I love using in everyday conversation.
yob, wotcher, wotsit, arse, balls-up, barmy, bint, bloke, blimey, bobby, bollocks, brolly and 78 more...
-
WordOff!
bocavet, nocacet, sexiant, berk, sicenarine, verlarine, bifoliate
-
Britain, Britain, Britain
Words that remind me of England or the UK
chuffed, bedlam, chuff, knackered, wotsit, manky, dodgy, wonky, berk
Tweets
Looking for tweets for berk.
yarb (Not-Foreskin v Foreskin -
Old testament berks
in daft dressing-gowns
and peep-toe slippers
play atavistic
grenade-lobbing pranks
in the Holy Land.)
- Peter Reading, Between the Headlines, from Diplopic, 1983 Jun 30, 2008
yarb Supposedly an abbreviation of rhyming slang "berkshire hunt" = cunt. Obviously much softer in meaning than cunt. Jan 10, 2008