gronk

See also: Gronk, grónk, and grønk

English

Etymology 1

A photo of a sign in a bar describing a 'no gronk policy'.

Noun

gronk (plural gronks)

1. (Australia, derogatory, informal) An unintelligent and callous person.

References

"gronk" in The Macquarie Dictionary Online

Etymology 2

Imitative.

Verb

gronk (third-person singular simple present gronks, present participle gronking, simple past and past participle gronked)

1. (computing, slang, intransitive) Of a floppy disk drive: to produce mechanical sounds of operation.
   • 1990, Compute, volume 12, numbers 1-5, page 62:

     They say a good detective always starts at the beginning, so I installed the program on my VGA PC's hard drive. As the computer gronked away, copying six 5¼-inch floppies, I wondered why, if bad detectives start at the end, […]

   • 1993, Iris Forrest, Computer Tales of Fact and Fantasy:

     […] a disk drive gronked, her screen bloomed, and suddenly there was an icon in the upper right corner.

   • 1994, Bryan Pfaffenberger, I Hate PCs:

     The next startup event is the computer's attempt to read a disk in drive A. But, there is no disk in drive A, remember? You were supposed to remove any disk in this drive. So, you hear a lot of pathetic gronking and grakking until the computer gives up […]

2. (computing, slang, intransitive, rare) To fail; to crash or go wrong.
   • 1992, Charlottesville Computer Users' Group: CCUG:

     Repeats the last 40 lines of IRC output, in case your terminal gronked.

   • 2010, Steven Levy, Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution (25th Anniversary Edition)

     The other faction centered on […] what went on under the [model railway] layout. This was The System, […] and it was constantly being improved, revamped, perfected, and sometimes "gronked"—in club jargon, screwed up.

Etymology 3

Onomatopoeic

Noun

gronk (plural gronks)

1. a harsh grating sound.
   1. The cry of a raven.

      Synonym: quork

      • 2006, Terrence Rundle West, Run of the Town‎^[1], page 153:

        Silence rang in my ears, punctuated by the occasional gronk of the ravens, as they flitted about in the spruce trees.

      • 2010, Diane Lee Wilson, Raven Speak‎^[2], page 6:

        Her call elicited an annoyed gronk above her head, and she looked up to see a raven lifting off the cliff face.

      • 2021, David Reed, Raven Queen, Rise, unnumbered page:

        My raven launched himself into the dark above with a gronk of amusement.

      • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:gronk.
   2. A mating call of the Albert's lyrebird.
      • 2024, Fiona Backhouse, Justin A. Welbergen, Bryce W. Robinson and Anastasia H. Dalziell, “Performative Manipulation of the Environment by Displaying Albert’s Lyrebirds”, in The American Naturalist‎^[3], volume 204, number 2, page 183:

        We then viewed the audio spectrogram...and measured the timing of each gronk.

   3. (UK, rail transport, slang) A British Rail Class 08 shunter locomotive, or similar shunters.

Verb

gronk (third-person singular simple present gronks, present participle gronking, simple past and past participle gronked)

1. To make a gronking sound.

   Synonym: quork

   • 2001, G. Stewart Nash, The Last Three Hundred Miles‎^[4], page 96:

     A raven gronked along the timber-covered ridge line, and a cool breeze swept down from the snow-covered peaks.

   • 2007, Kage Baker, The Graveyard Game‎^[5], page 34:

     Juan Bautista handed the raven off to a perch—it gronked and protested—and took a seat on his couch.

   • 2017, Robert Michael Pyle, Where Bigfoot Walks: Crossing the Dark Divide, unnumbered page:

     The rush of water behind me, the soft drip from the trees, ravens gronking far off—these were the only sounds I heard.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:gronk.