Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To make or become cheerful.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To creak; shriek; groan.
- To make a noise, as a bird; chirp.
- Also spelled cherk.
- To be or become cheerful.
- Lively; cheerful; pert; in good spirits.
- n. A perverted form of chert.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. obsolete To shriek; to gnash; to utter harsh or shrill cries.
- v. obsolete To chirp like a bird.
- v. Colloq. New Eng. To cheer; to enliven.
- adj. Colloq. New Eng. Lively; cheerful; in good spirits.
WordNet 3.0
- v. make a shrill creaking, squeaking, or noise, as of a door, mouse, or bird
Etymologies
- Middle English chirken, to chirp, chirrup, from Old English cearcian, to chatter, alteration of cracian, to resound; see crack. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Chirk, chirk, chirk, it went, the sound of a spoon being rapidly whisked round a basin.”
“Ayla lay awake under the starlit sky, staring up at the patterns of constellations and listening to the night sounds: the wind sifting through the trees, the soft liquid running of the river, the chirk of crickets, the harsh harumph of a bullfrog.”
“Mr. Haynes told me that if I would "chirk up" he would give me his elk teeth.”
“Just before dinner time I donned a becoming gown to chirk up my courage, groped my way down the long, dim stairs, and telephoned to Von Gerhard.”
“Now, you chirk up, Boston, and smile and try to be a good sport, or I'll work you over and make a man out of you.”
“Five dollars would make me chirk up; ten would start a slight smile; twenty would put a beam in mine eye; fifty would cause me to utter shrill cries of unadulterated joys and a hundred would inspire me to actions like unto those of a whirling dervish.”
“Not that anyone in particular expected "them poor Hayneses" to keep bright or "chirk up.”
The Best Short Stories of 1917 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story
“And such was the power of mercury and mind combined over matter that he would immediately chirk up and feel warm.”
“It's only when you come she seems to chirk up a bit.”
“We were in the very centre of a prairie-dog town, but before I could formulate in my mind the probabilities of holes and broken legs, the chirk, chirk, chirking had fallen astern.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘chirk’.
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Visuals
A list of words which yield surprising, beautiful, amusing, or otherwise noteworthy images here on Wordnik.
photochrom, fufluns, thank you, cool l..., postcard, picture postcard, cricket, physiological ill..., Gakuryū Ishii, ametropia, One Froggy Evening, rhodopsin, Santiago Calatrava and 636 more...
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phrontistery - c
from phrontistery.info
czardas, cytometer, cytology, cytheromania, cystoscope, cystolith, cyrenaic, cypseline, cyprinoid, cyphonism, cynophobia, cytogenesis and 1298 more...
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Verecund, flivver, etc
Just some words I happen to enjoy. Some thread-worn, some not.
yegg, yob, verecund, amatory, fermata, threepenny, gruntled, flivver, gamboge, decolletage, ordure, nudnik and 173 more...
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fbharjo's Words
jumelle, kef, kenspeckle, lautitious, essentic, pilpulistic, impavid, cicurant, clou, chrysostomic, miasma, teleology and 1625 more...
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Dewitful
visions of witfulness and vision - a wise guise
revision, advisor, ideal, witty, witness, veda, druid, penguin, hadal, idea, story, history and 269 more...
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Useful Words
I can use these.
aptronym, haplology, ectopia, folderol, volute, caryatid, spandrel, pendulous, miasmic, gelid, dotty, anomie and 256 more...
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Words from freerice.com
foolscap, tabor, pilus, carom, pomelo, pluton, bulbul, dhole, duenna, poniard, breviary, bollix and 88 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for chirk.
fbharjo chirk What a cheerful word! Dec 27, 2006