• IPA^(key): /wɔː(ɹ)k/

  • Audio (Southern England):

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• Rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)k

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.

wark (plural warks)

1. (UK dialectal, Northern England, Scotland) Pain; ache.

• bellywark
• headwark

From Middle English werken, warchen, from Old English wærcan (“to be in pain”). Cognate with Swedish värka (“to ache, pain”), Icelandic verkja (“to pain”). See above.

wark (third-person singular simple present warks, present participle warking, simple past and past participle warked)

1. (intransitive) To be in pain; ache.

See work.

wark (plural warks)

1. (obsolete, chiefly Scotland) Work.
   • 1819, Malcolm Laing, The History of Scotland, page 141:

     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.

   • 1860, Sir James Phillips Kay- huttleworth, Scarsdale; or, Life on the Lancashire and Yorkshire border, page 85:

     We'dn done a pratty day or two's wark afore t' sodgers geet at us.

   • 1864, Eliza Tabor, St. Olave's: A Novel, page 18:

     “Mair wark," replied Tibbie, looking round on her well-kept pans and candlesticks.

   • 1868, Eneas Sweetland Dallas, Once a Week, page 317:

     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.

2. (obsolete, chiefly Scotland) A building.
   • 1858, Robert Chambers, Domestic Annals of Scotland, page 253:

     '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.'

   • 1859, William Steven, Frederick William Bedford, History of George Heriot's hospital, page 54:

     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.

   • 1870, Sir James David Marwick, Records of the Convention of the Royal Burghs of Scotland, page 265:

     And because the said Thomas Fallisdaill and John Semple ar alreddy enterit to the said wark, [ and ] coft materiallis as thai declairit, and ressauit ane pairt of the said taxatioun;

• rawk

Borrowed from German Low German Wark. Cognate to English work.

• IPA^(key): /ˈvark/
• Rhymes: -ark
• Syllabification: wark

wark m inan

1. profession, trade, occupation

   Synonym: fach

• Eùgeniusz Gòłąbk (2011) “zawód”, in Słownik Polsko-Kaszubski / Słowôrz Pòlskò-Kaszëbsczi‎^[1]
• “wark”, in Internetowi Słowôrz Kaszëbsczégò Jãzëka [Internet Dictionary of the Kashubian Language], Fundacja Kaszuby, 2022

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

wark

1. (Sylt, of a body part) to hurt

wark

1. water

• Robert Leech, Vocabularies of seven languages, spoken in the countries west of the Indus; also Epitome of the Grammars of the Brahuiky, Balochky & Panjabi Languages (1843)

Deverbal from warknąć.

• IPA^(key): /ˈvark/
• Rhymes: -ark
• Syllabification: wark
• Homophone: warg

wark m inan

1. (dated, of a dog) growl, burr, whirr

   Synonym: warknięcie

• wark in Polish dictionaries at PWN

wark

1. to sleep

• wara (“sleep”)
• warenaq (“sleeper”)
• warib' (“bed”)
• wartesink (“put to sleep”, verb)

• Ch'ina tusleb' aatin q'eqchi'-kaxlan aatin ut kaxlan aatin-q'eqchi' (Guatemala, 1998) [2]

From Middle English work, werk, from Old English worc, weorc, ġeweorc, from Proto-Germanic *werką (“work”), from Proto-Indo-European *wérǵom.

wark (plural warks)

1. work
   • 1875, William Alexander, Sketches of Life Among My Ain Folk, page 51:

     "A twa-horse wark, maybe? or dee ye make it oot wi' ae beast an' an owse?"

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)