murk
/mɝk/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.23 in modern English
10
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "He cannot see through the mantle murk."
- "[…]in murk and occidental damp"
- "O great star disappear’d—O the black murk that hides the star!"
- "And yet, tiny sparks of hope gleam in this dim existence, like pearls in the murk."
- "Dawn had been murking through the smoky windows, growing stronger for half an hour..."
- "That's why he was able to catch Crush out there sleeping and why he murked him before he could ask him any questions."
Etymology
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”).
Origin
- Source language: Middle English
- First known use: First attested in the 1990s
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /mɝk/
- British English: /mɜːk/