irk
UK /ɜːk/ · US /ɝk/ verb, noun, proper noun
Forms irks irking irked
- verb (transitive) to irritate; annoy; bother “It irks me doing all this work and have someone wreck it.”
- noun An annoyance.
- proper noun A river in Greater Manchester, England, which joins the River Irwell in Manchester city centre.
Synonyms
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English irken (“to tire, grow weary”), from Old Norse yrkja (“to work”), from Proto-Germanic *wurkijaną (“to work”), from Proto-Indo-European *werǵ- (“to work”). Cognate with Icelandic yrkja (“to compose”), Swedish yrka (“to urge, argue”), Old English wyrċan (“to work”). Doublet of work.
Webster’s 1913
Etymology [OE. irken to tire, become tired; cf. Sw. yrka to urge, enforce, press, or G. ekel disgust, MHG. erklich disgusting; perh. akin to L. urgere to urge, E. urge.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “irk”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details