awk

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɔːk/
• IPA^(key): /ɔːk/
• IPA^(key): /ɑːk/
• Homophone: auk

Etymology 1

From (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Old Norse ǫfugr, ǫfigr, afigr (“turned backwards”) (whence Danish avet (“backwards”), Swedish avig (“turned backwards”)), from (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Proto-Germanic. Cognate with German äbich, Gothic 𐌹𐌱𐌿𐌺𐍃 (ibuks, “turned back”). Akin to Sanskrit अपाच् (apāc, “turned away”) . Compare dialectal Danish ave (“to turn”), 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

   the awk end of a rod (the butt end).

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Golding to this entry?)

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
• 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, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

Anagrams

• Kaw, Kwa, kaw