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stirk. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
stirk, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
stirk in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
stirk you have here. The definition of the word
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English
Etymology
From Middle English stirk, sterke, styrke, from Old English stīrc, stȳrc, stȳric, stīorc (“calf, a stirk, a young bullock or a heifer”), from Proto-West Germanic *stiurik, from Proto-Germanic *stiurikaz (“bullock”), diminutive of Proto-Germanic *steuraz (“steer”), equivalent to steer + -ock. Cognate with Middle Low German sterke (“stirk”), Middle Dutch stierick ("stirk"; compare Modern Dutch sterke (“young cow”)), German Sterk, Stärke, Stark (“stirk”). More at steer.
Pronunciation
Noun
stirk (plural stirks)
- (British, Scotland, dialectal, dated) A yearling cow; a young bullock or heifer.
1827, [Walter Scott], chapter XI, in Chronicles of the Canongate; , volume I (The Highland Widow), Edinburgh: [Ballantyne and Co.] for Cadell and Co.; London: Simpkin and Marshall, →OCLC, page 197:But beware of MacPhadraick, my son; for when he called himself the friend of your father, he better loved the most worthless stirk in his herd, than he did the life-blood of MacTavish Mhor.
1843 March 3, “To Be Sold by Auction, By B. Cheatle & Son”, in Leicester Journal, and Midland Counties General Advertiser, volume 92, number 4895, Leicester: James Jackson, page 2:Comprising eleven calved and in-calf cows and heifers, three barren cows, four fat cows and heifers, two sturks and three yearlings; fifteen in-lamb ewes and theaves, […]
1932, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Sunset Song (A Scots Quair), Polygon, published 2006, page 20:he could stop a running stirk by the horns, so strong he was in the wrist-bones.
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