murk
pronunciation
How to pronounce murk in British English:
UK [mɜ:k]
How to pronounce murk in American English:
US [mɜrk]
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- Noun:
- an atmosphere in which visibility is reduced because of a cloud of some substance
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- Verb:
- make dark, dim, or gloomy
Word Origin
- murk (n)
- c. 1300, myrke, from Old Norse myrkr "darkness," from Proto-Germanic *merkwjo- (cognates: Old English mirce "murky, black, dark; murkiness, darkness," Danish mǿrk "darkness," Old Saxon mirki "dark"); cognate with Old Church Slavonic mraku, Serbo-Croatian mrak, Russian mrak "darkness;" Lithuanian merkti "shut the eyes, blink," from PIE *mer- "to flicker" (see morn). Murk Monday was long the name in Scotland for the great solar eclipse of March 29, 1652 (April 8, New Style).
Example
- 1. Somewhere down in the murk a lot of old people and asthmatics were dying .
- 2. But the polls have at least allowed a tiny flicker of pluralist light into the murk of burmese totalitarianism .