shirk
pronunciation
How to pronounce shirk in British English:
UK [ʃɜ:k]
How to pronounce shirk in American English:
US [ʃɜrk]
-
- Verb:
- avoid (one's assigned duties)
- avoid dealing with
Word Origin
- shirk (v.)
- 1630s, "to practice fraud or trickery," also a noun (1630s, now obsolete) "a needy, disreputable parasite" [OED], perhaps from German schurke "scoundrel, rogue, knave, villain" (see shark (n.)). Sense of "evade one's work or duty" first recorded 1785, originally in slang. Related: Shirked; shirking.
Example
- 1. To not be connected is to shirk our social responsibilities .
- 2. That is our calling , and we do not shirk it .
- 3. Gou on tuesday said he isn 't trying to shirk anything .
- 4. Democracy has its flaws : populism , the excessive power of lobbyists , the urge to make unaffordable promises and to shirk reforms .
- 5. We sometimes expect fathers to shirk their responsibility ; but when mothers do it , it shakes the core of what we 've been taught to believe about women and maternal instinct .