Link Centre Dictionary

irk

UK/ɜːk/ US/ɝk/ uncommon

verb

1.

irritate or vex

  • “It galls me that we lost the suit”
Synonyms

Origin

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.

Related words

Word family

Broader terms

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.