different between berk vs perk

English

Etymology

The usage dates from the 1930s; berk is a shortened version of Berkeley Hunt, the hunt based at Berkeley Castle, in Gloucestershire. In Cockney rhyming slang, hunt is a rhyme for cunt, giving the word its original slang meaning.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /b??(?)k/
• Rhymes: -??(?)k
• Homophone: birk

Noun

berk (plural berks)

1. (Britain, slang, derogatory, sometimes endearing) A fool, prat, twit.
2. (Cockney rhyming slang, vulgar) Cunt.

Usage notes

Not perceived as excessively rude, perhaps because its origin in rhyming slang is not well known.

See also

• Belvoir (pronounced Beaver)

References

• Chambers Dictionary: Entry for berk
• Cassell's Dictionary of Slang. Jonathon Green. Pub. Cassel & Co. ?ISBN

Anagrams

• brek, kerb

Albanian

Etymology 1

From berr (cf. derk from derr).

Noun

berk m (indefinite plural berqe, definite singular berku, definite plural berqet)

1. goat

Declension

Related terms

• berr

Etymology 2

From Proto-Albanian *bardz(i)ka, from *bardza > bardhë (“white”). Similar sense development as in barmë.

Noun

berk m (indefinite plural berqe, definite singular berku, definite plural berqet)

1. (botany) sapwood, alburnum
2. (dialectal) bark

Declension

Related terms

• barmë

References

Dutch

Etymology

From Middle Dutch berke, from Old Dutch *berka, from Proto-West Germanic *berku, from Proto-Germanic *berk?, from Proto-Indo-European *b?erH?ós.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /b?rk/
• Hyphenation: berk
• Rhymes: -?rk

Noun

berk m (plural berken, diminutive berkje n)

1. birch, tree of the genus Betula

   Synonym: berkenboom

Derived terms

• berkenboom
• berkenroede
• berkhaan
• berkhoen

Descendants

• Afrikaans: berk

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /b??k/

Interjection

berk

1. Alternative form of beurk: yuck!

Turkish

Etymology

From Old Turkic [script needed] (bérk), from Proto-Turkic *berk (“mighty”). Related to pek.

Adjective

berk

1. strong, hard, robust, violent
2. heroic
3. firm, solid

Synonyms

• sert, kat? [1]
• sa?lam [2]

References

• Ni?anyan, Sevan (2002–) , “berk”, in Ni?anyan Sözlük
• Starostin, Sergei; Dybo, Anna; Mudrak, Oleg (2003) Etymological dictionary of the Altaic languages (Handbuch der Orientalistik; VIII.8), Leiden, New York, Köln: E.J. Brill: “*parki”

English

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /p?k/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /p??k/
• Rhymes: -??(?)k

Etymology 1

Clipping of perquisite

Alternative forms

• perq (less common)

Noun

perk (plural perks)

1. (informal) Perquisite.

   Free coffee is one of the perks of the job.

2. (video games) A bonus ability that a player character can acquire; a permanent power-up.

Translations

Etymology 2

Clipping of percolate (verb) and percolator (noun).

Verb

perk (third-person singular simple present perks, present participle perking, simple past and past participle perked)

1. (transitive, informal) To make (coffee) in a percolator or a drip coffeemaker.

2. (intransitive, informal) Of coffee: to be produced by heated water seeping (“percolating”) through coffee grounds.

Derived terms

• unperked

Noun

perk (plural perks)

1. A percolator, particularly of coffee.

Etymology 3

The origin is uncertain.

Verb

perk (third-person singular simple present perks, present participle perking, simple past and past participle perked)

1. (transitive) To make trim or smart; to straighten up; to erect; to make a jaunty or saucy display of.
   • 1785, William Cowper, The Task, London: J. Johnson, Book 6, p. 247,^[1]

     [the squirrel] whisks his brush

     And perks his ears, and stamps and scolds aloud

   • 1924, James Oliver Curwood, A Gentleman of Courage, Toronto: Copp Clark, Chapter 4,^[2]

     The blue jay was having a fit, and the sapsucker perked his bright-eyed little head at him not more than a dozen feet away.

2. (intransitive) To appear from below or behind something, emerge, pop up, poke out.
   • 1640, John Gower (translator), Ovid’s Festivalls, Cambridge, Book 4, April, p. 77,^[3]

     The heads of plants above the crack’d ground perk:

   • 1753, Samuel Richardson, The History of Sir Charles Grandison, London, for the author, Volume 1, Letter 22, p. 159,^[4]

     A white Paris net sort of cap, glittering with spangles, and incircled by a chaplet of artificial flowers, with a little white feather perking from the left ear, is to be my head-dress.

   • 1842, Robert Browning, “The Pied Piper of Hamelin” in Lyrics of Life, Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1866, pp. 35-36, lines 152-153,^[5]

     […] suddenly up the face

     Of the Piper perked in the market-place,

   • 1937 Robert Byron, The Road to Oxiana, London: Macmillan, Part 4, “Kavar,” p. 159,^[6]

     A strong warm wind carried a sound of chopping with it and a rustle of dead plane-leaves; through those leaves perked the green crooks of young ferns.

3. (intransitive, obsolete) To exalt oneself; to bear oneself loftily.
   • 1574, Arthur Golding (translator), Sermons of Master John Calvin, upon the Booke of Job, London: Lucas Harison and George Byshop, Sermon 38, The first upon the tenth Chapter,^[7]

     For whereof commeth thys hypocrisie in the popedome, that men shall preache free will, merits, and satisfactions, and set vp their bristles in suche wise, and beare themselues in hande that they may come perking before God, yea and preace thither lyke shamelesse strumpets.

   • 1683, Isaac Barrow, A Treatise of the Pope’s Supremacy, London: Brabazon Aylmer, Supposition 5, p. 140,^[8]

     […] our Lord had never any such design, to set up a sort of men in such distance above their brethren; to perk over them, and suck them of their goods by tricks […]

Derived terms

Adjective

perk (comparative more perk, superlative most perk)

1. (obsolete) Smart; trim; spruce; jaunty; vain.
   • 1579, Edmund Spenser, The Shepheardes Calender, London: Hugh Singleton, “Februarie,”^[9]

     My ragged rontes all shiver and shake,

     As doen high Towers in an earthquake:

     They wont in the wind wagge their wrigle tailes,

     Perke as Peacock: but nowe it auales.

   • 1640, John Gower (translator), Ovid’s Festivalls, Cambridge, Book 4, April, p. 96,^[10]

     All, joy’d at th’ omen, their foundation laid:

     And in short time a perk new wall is made.

Etymology 4

The origin is uncertain.

Verb

perk (third-person singular simple present perks, present participle perking, simple past and past participle perked)

1. (dated) To peer; to look inquisitively.
   • 1835, Charles Dickens, “The Election for Beadle” in Sketches by Boz, London: John Macrone, 3rd edition, 1837, Volume 1, p. 32,^[11]

     He is a tall, thin, bony man, with an interrogative nose, and little restless perking eyes, which appear to have been given him for the sole purpose of peeping into other people’s affairs with.

Etymology 5

From Middle English perken, from Old Northern French perquer.

Verb

perk (third-person singular simple present perks, present participle perking, simple past and past participle perked)

1. (obsolete) To perch.
   • 1591, Robert Greene, Greenes Farewell to Folly, London: T. Gubbin & T. Newman,^[12]

     Then sir, let me say, that Mineruas owle was proude, for perking vnder [h]ir golden target […]

   • 1633, Francis Quarles, “On the Infancie of our Saviour” in Divine Fancies Digested into Epigrammes, Meditations, and Observations, London: John Marriot, p. 3,^[13]

     O! what a ravishment ’thad beene, to see

     Thy little Saviour perking on thy Knee!

   • 1779, Samuel Jackson Pratt, Shenstone-Green: or, the New Paradise Lost, London: R. Baldwin, Volume 1, Chapter 24, pp. 205-206,^[14]

     With respect to walking, it is the favourite exercise of my life; I sometimes divert myself with objects on the road, which, my being on a level with them, offers to observation; and yet, which, had I been perked up beyond my natural height on the back of a horse, would have been all overlooked.

Anagrams

• PKer, REPK, pre-K

Dutch

Etymology

From Middle Dutch perc, from Old Dutch perk (attested in placenames), from Frankish *parrik, from Proto-Germanic *parrukaz. Compare also park and German Pferch.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /p?rk/
• Rhymes: -?rk

Noun

perk n (plural perken, diminutive perkje n)

1. a delimited piece of ground, e.g. a flowerbed

Derived terms

• bloemperk
• grasperk
• krijgsperk
• oorlogsperk
• paal en perk stellen
• perkenwet
• rozenperk
• speelperk
• strijdperk
• tijdperk