Quirk
nounA peculiar or unexpected feature, habit, or twist of circumstance.
How to spell quirk
5 letters · 1 syllable
How to pronounce quirk
What does quirk mean?
- nounA peculiar or unexpected feature, habit, or twist of circumstance.
- verbTo twist or curve something suddenly, especially part of the face.
Quirk in a sentence
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noun
His habit of alphabetising the spice rack is a harmless quirk.
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verb
She would quirk one eyebrow whenever she doubted a claim.
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noun
By some quirk of the timetable, both trains leave at the same minute.
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verb
He let his mouth quirk into a faint, knowing smile.
Where does quirk come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
The origin of quirk is genuinely uncertain, which is why its confidence here is low. It appears in English in the late 1500s, first meaning a sudden twist, turn, or evasive verbal trick, especially a clever quibble used to dodge a point in argument. From that idea of an unexpected twist it broadened to mean a peculiar habit or odd feature of someone's character, and it also took on a concrete sense in carpentry and architecture for a small sharp groove cut beside a moulding. Scholars suspect a link to words meaning a turn or twist, possibly connected to dialect terms of Germanic flavour, but no clear single ancestor has ever been pinned down. The spelling trap is the qu- opening followed by -irk: the q always needs its silent partner u, and the ending rhymes with work yet is written with i.
How the word is built
- quirk (a single Germanic-flavoured root; no separable prefix or suffix)
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