Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To avoid or neglect (a duty or responsibility).
- v. To avoid work or duty.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To practise mean or artful tricks; live by one's wits; shark.
- To avoid unfairly or meanly the performance of some labor or duty.
- To procure by mean tricks; shark.
- To avoid or get off from unfairly or meanly; slink away from: as, to shirk responsibility.
- n. One who lives by shifts or tricks. See shark.
- n. One who seeks to avoid duty.
Wiktionary
- v. transitive To avoid, especially a duty, responsibility, etc.; to stay away from.
- n. one who shirks
- n. Islam the unforgivable sin of idolatry
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To procure by petty fraud and trickery; to obtain by mean solicitation.
- v. To avoid; to escape; to neglect; -- implying unfaithfulness or fraud.
- v. To live by shifts and fraud; to shark.
- v. To evade an obligation; to avoid the performance of duty, as by running away.
- n. One who lives by shifts and tricks; one who avoids the performance of duty or labor.
WordNet 3.0
- v. avoid (one's assigned duties)
- v. avoid dealing with
Etymologies
- First attested use in 1625 – 1635, apparently from association with shark (verb form), or from German Schurke ("rogue, knave"). (Wiktionary)
- Perhaps from German Schurke, scoundrel; akin to Old High German fiurscurgo, demon : fiur, fire + scurigen, to stir up. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“She doesn't shirk from the realities that surround the economy, but neither does she give in to those who always seem to see the doom and gloom, rather than the shimmer of hope.”
Obama aide hints at second stimulus, tries to slam door on tax talk
“First and foremost - tell a time travel story that does not shirk from a confrontation with the paradoxes.”
MIND MELD: Who are Your Literary Influences in the Ongoing Conversation of Science Fiction?
“Never one to shirk from a challenge, I replied: Some friends of mine decided to remodel their kitchen.”
“[FN#57] There is a play upon words in this line, founded upon the double meaning of the word shirk, sharing (or partnership) and polytheism or the attributing partners or equals to God (as in the Trinity), the one unpardonable sin of the Muslim religious code.”
“Even more suspiciously the word shirk and shark around this time held this same identical meaning-though there's no indication why someone might apply a word meaning "cheat" to a huge weird fish.”
podictionary - for word lovers - dictionary etymology, trivia & history
“After football and prayers the boys sat cross-legged on the floor while Faisal spoke to them about "shirk" - the sin of worshipping Gods other than Allah.”
“Normally, I’d shirk from the suggestion of having a “pro” wrestler play the lead in a Marvel blockbuster, but given the character in question, casting anyone lacking the physique of such a wrestler would simply set things up poorly.”
“It does point out that there was an Austrian-German word for a sturgeon that was similar and also that the word shirk was being used in English before this to mean a person of little use, and a cheater.”
podictionary - for word lovers - dictionary etymology, trivia & history
“Outsiders don't always take SSHRC (always pronounced "shirk") as seriously as SSHRC would like.”
“And then we kind of shirk off in the corner when we gain 20 pounds back.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘shirk’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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gre
municipal, whit, dissembler, berate, liberally, embellish, dissimilitude, histrionics, flamboyance, bombastic, bovine, calumny and 142 more...
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The weird, the wonderful and the plai...
Loved for their ingenuity, an exact description, or simply for the pure joy of it.
acidulous, aprosdoketon, higgledy-piggledy, lexicographical, ninja, audacious, somnabulist, shivaree, amorphous, quidnunc, glib, melancholy and 353 more...
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Words build meanings from origins( et...
These come from gamma meditation ,I think.
discursive, exogenous, machinations, purportedly, sumptuous, congruity, cantankerous, incongruous, festoon, hessian, ratiocinative, stratigraphic and 2046 more...
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Quacksalvers et al. Nostrum
Bring forth the cathartic illumination on malignant,maniacal,medical,menage a trios and more egotists stymie
culpability, piousfraud, capacitous, rhabdomyolysis, scapula, idiosyncrasy, quiescent, malignant, nefarious, sociological, sociopath, pathogen and 202 more...
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GRE
predilection, explicit, appeal, supplication, appealing, enchanting, ovation, pertinent, apropos, opportunely, applicable, germane and 381 more...
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Red Badge of Courage
purl, parallel, ardor, ethic, great, patriotism, shirk, picket, dreg, skedaddle, imitative
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jan_21
magoosh listens
infuriating, imperciptible, sporadic, galvanize, shirk, protean, versatile, auspicious, clairvoyance, nary, presentiment, qualm and 63 more...
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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
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inkhorn's Words
inkhorn, aplomb, apotheosis, asinine, avatar, bombastic, boorish, bromide, bucolic, cagey, canvass, digress and 991 more...
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Faves
nepenthe, cupidity, anodyne, obdurate, doleful, obsolescent, quale, piquant, velleity, inchoate, disport, facile and 366 more...
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words i love
fuss, rhythm, obfuscate, sumptuous, decadence, ethereal, peach, stingy, muscle, wrapper, corpus, dastardly deed and 90 more...
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GRE AWA
escalating, vehement, vehemence, hostility, paparazzi, regime, irrespective, scoop, exaggerated, overblown, unfetter, scrupulous and 272 more...
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Words grabbed from real life conversa...
If I've seen it, heard it, or marvelled at it, I'll stick it here.
cruft, ermine, redundant, shakespearean, camino, marvelous, stupendous, chagrin, shaven, sleek, smug, stillness and 325 more...
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newGRE
mostly from magoosh
imbue, verge on, nonchalant, deliberate, timorous, futile, provisional, dissect, checked, tinged, alluring, visionary and 1046 more...
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Naresh_Gre
The path meanders through the vineyards
meander, labyrinth, Sinuous, gyrate, caron, awry, credo, banter, juxtaposition, argot, inexorable, foibles and 223 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for shirk.
titi "We, as a nation, cannot afford to shirk responsibility any longer," Mar 30, 2009