wark
/wɔɹk/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.33 in modern English
11
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
name
A surname.
name
A village and civil parish in mid Northumberland, England, otherwise known as Wark on Tyne (OS grid ref NY8677).
Example Sentences
- "That September (1582) in time of vacance, my uncle Mr. Andrew, Mr. Thomas Buchanan and I, hearing that Mr. George Buchanan was weak, and his history under the press, passed over to Edinburgh anes errand to visite him, and to see the wark."
- "We'dn done a pratty day or two's wark afore t' sodgers geet at us."
- "“Mair wark," replied Tibbie, looking round on her well-kept pans and candlesticks."
- "Uprose anither fearsome cry, Uprose exultingly; He couldna hear the words they spak', Yet corpse-pale turned he. The awsome flames had dune their wark, Nae form was left to see, Nought but a grim and blackened stake, A ghastly vacancy."
- "'Yet this imposition,' says Nicoll, 'seemed not to thrive; for at the same instant God frae the heavens declared his anger by sending thunder, and unheard tempests, and storms, and inundations of water, whilk destroyed their common mills, dams, and warks, to the town's great charges and expenses.' Eleven mills belonging to Edinburgh, and five belonging to Heriot's Hospital, all upon the Water of Leith, were destroyed on this occasion, 'with their dams, water-gangs, timber and stone- warks, the haill wheels of their mills, timber graith, and haill other warks.'"
- "They speak in high terms of "his extraordiner panes and grait cair he had in that Wark, baith by his advyce, and in the building of the same."
Etymology
From Middle English werk, warch, from Old English wærc, wræc (“pain, suffering, anguish”), from Proto-Germanic *warkiz (“pain”), from Proto-Indo-European *werǵ- (“to make, work, act”). Cognate with Swedish värk (“ache, pain”), Icelandic verkur (“pain”). Related to work.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /wɔɹk/
- British English: /wɔːk/
Usage
- British usage
- Intransitive verb
- Obsolete