Turk
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Alternative forms
Etymology
From Middle English Turke, Turk, from Old French Turc, from Medieval Latin Turcus, from Byzantine Greek Τοῦρκος (Toûrkos), from Classical Persian تُرْک (turk), from Middle Persian [script needed] (twlk' /turk/), from Old Turkic 𐱅𐰇𐰼𐰜 (t²ür²k̥). See Proto-Turkic *tür(ü)k for more.
Pronunciation
- (General American) IPA(key): /tɝk/
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /tɜːk/
Audio (General Australian): (file) - Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)k
Noun
Turk (plural Turks)
- A speaker of the various Turkic languages.
- A person from Turkey or of Turkish ethnic descent. [from 12th c.]
- (obsolete) A Muslim. [16th–18th c.]
- c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii], page 268, column 2:
- Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers—if the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me—with two Provincial roses on my razed shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry of players?
- 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 12, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:
- Compare but our manners unto a Turke [translating Mahometan], or a Pagan, and we must needs yeeld unto them […].
- 1637, William Chillingworth, The Religion of Protestants a Safe Way to Salvation:
- It is no good reason for a man's religion that he was born and brought up in it; for then a Turk would have as much reason to be a Turk as a Christian to be a Christian.
- a Christian horse-archer in Crusader army (Turcopole).
- (archaic) A bloodthirsty and savage person; vandal; barbarian.[1] [from 16th c.]
- 1579, John Lyly, Euphues, page 42:
- Was neuer any Impe so wicked and barbarous, any Turke so vyle and brutishe.
- 1760, Tobias George Smollett, editor, The Critical Review: Or, Annals of Literature, Volume 9, page 20:
- A sort of primitive barbarity distinguishes the whole; no variety of character appears; and to call a man Turk is to say, that he is jealous, haughty, covetous, ignorant, and lascivious; at the same time that a certain dignity of gait, and magnificence of manners, gives him the appearance of generosity and true greatness of soul.
- 1987, Anne Mozley, Essays from "Blackwood", page 21:
- A bad temper does seem often favourable to health. The man who has been a Turk all his life lives long to plague all about him.
- 1906, George Meredith, One of our conquerors, page 292:
- As much as the wilfully or naturally blunted, the intelligently honest have to learn by touch: only, their understandings cannot meanwhile be so wholly obtuse as our society's matron, acting to please the tastes of the civilized man—a creature that is not clean-washed of the Turk in him—barbarously exacts.
- A member of a Mestee group in South Carolina.
- A person from Llanelli, Wales.
- A Turkish horse.
- The plum curculio.
Derived terms
Translations
a person from Turkey
|
a speaker of the various Turkic languages
|
Muslim — see Muslim
bloodthirsty and savage person
|
Adjective
Turk (comparative more Turk, superlative most Turk)
Proper noun
Turk
- A surname.
See also
References
- John A. Simpson and Edmund S. C. Weiner, editors (1989), “Turk”, in The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, →ISBN.
Further reading
Anagrams
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