berk

Cockney rhyming slang, an ellipsis and clipping of Berkeley Hunt, a prominent hunt at Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire, to mean cunt.

• (General American) IPA^(key): /bɝk/
• (UK) IPA^(key): /bɜː(ɹ)k/

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)k
• Homophone: birk

berk (plural berks)

1. (UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, slang, derogatory, vulgar) a fool, a prat, a twit, etc. [1930]
   • 2003 July 12, Nicholas Lezard, “Ad execs quoting Gramsci? Only in France”, in The Guardian‎, →ISSN:

     His chat-up techniques have to be read to be imagined—they make the crudest of Loaded-style berks seem classy—and he earns far, far too much money.

   • 2006 February 3, Graham Linehan, The IT Crowd, season 1, episode 2:

     I don't know why they couldn't just keep it as it was! How hard is it to remember 911?
     You mean 999...
     I mean 999!
     That's the American one!
     Yeah!
     You berk.

Although the term remains in fairly wide use, its specific origin and meaning in rhyming slang is less well known, lessening its vulgarity.

• See fool and idiot

• Belvoir (pronounced Beaver)

• "berk" in Chambers Dictionary
• "berk" in Jonathon Green's Cassell's Dictionary of Slang →ISBN
• Jonathon Green (2024) “berk n.”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang

• brek, kerb

From berr (cf. derk from derr).

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

1. goat

• berr

From Proto-Albanian *bardz(i)ka, from *bardza > bardhë (“white”). Similar sense development as in barmë.[1]

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

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

• barmë

From Middle Dutch berke, from Old Dutch *berka, from Proto-West Germanic *berku, from Proto-Germanic *berkō, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰerHǵós.

• IPA^(key): /bɛrk/

• audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: berk
• Rhymes: -ɛrk

berk m (plural berken, diminutive berkje n)

1. birch, tree of the genus Betula

   Synonym: berkenboom

• berkenboom
• berkenroede
• berkhaan
• berkhoen

• Afrikaans: berk

• IPA^(key): /bɛʁk/

• Audio

  (file)

berk

1. Alternative form of beurk: yuck!

berk

1. (bragarmál) Contraction of ber ek.

Inherited from Ottoman Turkish برك (berk), from Proto-Turkic *berk (“mighty”). Related to pek.

berk

1. strong, hard, robust, violent

   Synonyms: sert, katı

2. heroic
3. firm, solid

   Synonym: sağlam

• Nişanyan, Sevan (2002–) “berk1”, in Nişanyan Sözlük
• Redhouse, James W. (1890) “برك”, in A Turkish and English Lexicon‎, Constantinople: A. H. Boyajian, page 356
• 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”

Inherited from Ottoman Turkish برق (berk), from Arabic بَرْق (barq).

berk (definite accusative berki, plural berkler) (archaic)

1. lightning

• Nişanyan, Sevan (2002–) “berk2”, in Nişanyan Sözlük
• Avery, Robert et al., editors (2013), The Redhouse Dictionary Turkish/Ottoman English, 21st edition, Istanbul: Sev Yayıncılık, →ISBN