Murk - Wiktionary

See also: mürk

English

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Pronunciation

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• (General American) IPA(key): /mɝk/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /mɜːk/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)k

Etymology 1

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From Middle English merke, mirke, from Old English mirce, myrce (“dark, gloomy, evil”) and Old Norse myrkr (“dark, murky”), both from Proto-Germanic *merkuz (“dark”), from Proto-Indo-European *mergʷ- (“to flicker; to darken; to be dark”). Cognate Danish mørk (“dark”), Norwegian mørk (“dark”), Swedish mörk (“dark”), Icelandic myrkur (“dark”), as also Albanian murg (“dark”), Proto-Slavic *morkъ (“darkness”), Lithuanian márgas (“multicolored”), murzinas (“dirty, spoiled”), Ancient Greek ἀμορβός (amorbós, “dark”).

Alternative forms

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• mirk (archaic)
• mark (dialectal)

Adjective

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murk (comparative murker, superlative murkest)

1. Dark, murky.
   • 1835, Joseph Rodman Drake, The Culprit Fay:He cannot see through the mantle murk.
   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:mirk.

Derived terms

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• murken

Etymology 2

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From Middle English mirke, merke, from Old English mirce, myrce (“darkness, gloom”) and Old Norse myrkr (“darkness, gloom”), both from Proto-Germanic *merkwą, *mirkwiz (“darkness”), Proto-Indo-European *mergʷ- (“to flicker; to darken; to be dark”).

Noun

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murk (uncountable)

1. Darkness, or a dark or gloomy environment. Synonym: gloom
   • c. 1604–1605 (date written), William Shakespeare, “All’s Well, that Ends Well”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]:[…]in murk and occidental damp
   • 1865, Walt Whitman, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”, in Sequel to Drum-Taps: When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d and other poems:O great star disappear’d—O the black murk that hides the star!
   • 2004, Intelligent Systems, translated by Nintendo of America, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, Nintendo, GameCube, level/area: Twilight Town:And yet, tiny sparks of hope gleam in this dim existence, like pearls in the murk.

Derived terms

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• murketing
• murklins
• murkly
• murksome
• murky

Translations

[edit] darkness, or a dark or gloomy environment

Bulgarian: мрак (bg) m (mrak) Czech: temno n, temnota (cs) f, tma (cs) f, šero (cs) n Polish: ciemność (pl) f, mrok (pl) m Russian: тьма (ru) f (tʹma), темнота́ (ru) f (temnotá), мрак (ru) m (mrak) Ukrainian: морок m (morok), темрява (uk) f (temrjava), пітьма f (pitʹma)

Etymology 3

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From Middle English mirken, probably from Old Norse myrkja, myrkva (“to make dark, darken”), from Proto-Germanic *mirkwijaną, *mirkwajaną (“to make dark”), from Proto-Indo-European *mergʷ- (“to flicker; to darken; to be dark”).

Verb

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murk (third-person singular simple present murks, present participle murking, simple past and past participle murked)

1. (intransitive) To make murky or be murky; to cloud or obscure, or to be clouded or obscured.
   • 1918, Booth Tarkington, The Magnificent Ambersons‎[1]:Dawn had been murking through the smoky windows, growing stronger for half an hour...

Translations

[edit] to make murky or to be murky

Bulgarian: затъмнявам (bg) (zatǎmnjavam) Polish: mętnieć impf, zmętnieć pf Russian: затмевать (ru) (zatmevatʹ)

Etymology 4

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Possibly an alteration of merc, from clipping of mercenary. First attested in the 1990s.

Alternative forms

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• merk

Verb

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murk (third-person singular simple present murks, present participle murking, simple past and past participle murked) (slang, ambitransitive, originally African-American)

1. To kill or eliminate.
   • 2010, Dana Dane, Numbers, page 232:That's why he was able to catch Crush out there sleeping and why he murked him before he could ask him any questions.
   • 2011 August 31, Justin Kemble, quotee, “Feds Consulted Urban Dictionary In Threat Case”, in The Smoking Gun‎[2]:that 1 fag in there got my pistol confiscated, I got plenty of other guns but I want to murk that cocksucker
   • 2018 March 26, A. A. Dowd, “Steven Spielberg Finds Fun, and maybe even a Soul, in the Pandering Pastiche of Ready Player One”, in The A.V. Club‎[3], archived from the original on 31 May 2018:In truth, there are Easter eggs planted in just about every frame of Ready Player One, which never misses an opportunity to insert a recognizable character (hey, is that Jason Voorhees getting merked during the film’s first-person shooter level?) or toss a sop to the faithful.
2. To beat up; to injure.
   • 1991, Camp Lo, Coolie High:cause we be murkin from the boogieAnd shittin on the crowds'cause they jive fakin woody.
   • 2011, Treasure Hernandez, Baltimore Chronicles, volume 2:He clowned Sticks, and Sticks murked him for no reason. And I don't know for sure, but I think he murked Trail.
   • 2023, Nathan Bryon, Tom Melia, directed by Raine Allen-Miller, Rye Lane:Yas (Vivian Oparah): And where is this, uh, summit of doom taking place?Dom (David Jonsson): Il Giardino. There. Used to be "our" place.Yas: No. Absolutely not. Text her, you can't make it. We'll go to Laser Quest, merk some eight-year-olds.
3. To eliminate; to defeat overwhelmingly.
   • 2022 March 5, NBC Sports Philadelphia‎[4]Twitter:POV: You're about to get murked by two of Philly's finest on the court. | @myteamtoyota

Derived terms

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• murk out

References

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• “murk”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang, Jonathon Green, 2016–present
• “merk”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.

Further reading

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• “murk”, in Urban Dictionary, launched 1999.
• “merk”, in Urban Dictionary, launched 1999.
• “murked”, in Urban Dictionary, launched 1999.
• “merked”, in Urban Dictionary, launched 1999.

Anagrams

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• Krum