awk

awk

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɔːk/

  • Audio (UK)

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• (US) IPA^(key): /ɔːk/
• (US, cot–caught merger) IPA^(key): /ɑːk/
• Rhymes: -ɔːk, -ɑːk
• Homophone: auk

Etymology 1

From Middle English [Term?], from Old Norse ǫfugr, ǫfigr, afigr (“turned backwards”) (whence Danish avet (“backwards”), Swedish avig (“turned backwards”)), from Proto-Germanic *abuhaz[1]. Cognate with German äbich, Gothic 𐌹𐌱𐌿𐌺𐍃 (ibuks, “turned back”)[2]. Akin to Sanskrit अपाच् (apāc, “turned away”) [3]. Compare dialectal Danish ave (“to turn”), Dutch averechts (“opposite, backwards, contrary”), Icelandic öfga (“to reverse”).

Adjective

awk (comparative more awk, superlative most awk)

1. (obsolete) Odd; out of order; perverse.
2. (obsolete) Wrong, or not commonly used; clumsy; sinister.
   • 1567, Arthur Golding, Metamorphoses:

     the awk end of hir charmed rod

3. (obsolete, UK, dialect) Clumsy in performance or manners; not dexterous; awkward.

   Synonym: unhandy

   • 1815 Sir Egerton Brydges, Archaica: Harvey's Four letters, and sonnets, touching Robert Greene; Pierce's supererogation; [and] New letter of notable contents. Brathwaite's Essays upon the five senses, From the private press of Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, printed by T. Davison, p142

     […] whose wild and madbrain humour nothing fitteth so just, as the stalest dudgen or absurdest balductum, that they or their mates can invent in odd and awk speeches […]

4. (US slang, of a situation) Awkward; uncomfortable.

Derived terms

• awkly
• awkness
• awkward

Adverb

awk (comparative more awk, superlative most awk)

1. (obsolete) Perversely; in the wrong way.

Etymology 2

From the initial letters of the surnames of its authors: Alfred Aho, Peter Weinberger, and Brian Kernighan.

Proper noun

awk

1. (computing) A Unix scripting language or the command line interface itself.

   I used C, Perl, the Bourne shell, and some awk and tcl to implement these projects.

References

• awk in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913

1. Douglas Harper (2001–2023), “awkward”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
2. Germanic cognates in Deutsches Wörterbuch
3. awk in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913

Anagrams

• Kaw, Kwa, kaw