different between chunk vs skerrick

English

Variant of chuck; or alternatively a diminutive of chump (“chunk; block”) +? *-k (diminutive suffix) (compare hunk from hump, etc.).

chunk (plural chunks)

A part of something that has been separated.
The statue broke into chunks.
A representative portion of a substance, often large and irregular.
a chunk of granite
(linguistics, education) A sequence of two or more words that occur in language with high frequency but are not idiomatic; a bundle or cluster.
examples of chunks would include "in accordance with", "the results of", and "so far"
(computing) A discrete segment of a file, stream, etc. (especially one that represents audiovisual media); a block.
- 1994, Paul J Perry, Multimedia developer's guide
  The first DWORD of a chunk data in the RIFF chunk is a four character code value identifying the form type of the file.
(comedy) A segment of a comedian's performance.

chunk (third-person singular simple present chunks, present participle chunking, simple past and past participle chunked)

(transitive) To break into large pieces or chunks.
(transitive) To break down (language, etc.) into conceptual pieces of manageable size.
(transitive, slang, chiefly Southern US) To throw.

Origin unknown. Originally used in British dialect.

skerrick (plural skerricks)

(now chiefly Australia, New Zealand) A very small amount or portion, particularly used in the negative.
- 2006, Alexis Wright, Carpentaria, Giramondo 2012, p. 117:
  When he reached this point in his madness, it disabled whatever skerrick of common sense he might have had even to save himself.
- 2007, Kennedy Warne, Blue Haven, National Geographic (April 2007), 74,
  "And all I can think is that they're seeing a crumb, a skerrick of what it once was".