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Quirk   Listen
noun
Quirk  n.  (Written also querk)  
1.
A sudden turn; a starting from the point or line; hence, an artful evasion or subterfuge; a shift; a quibble; as, the quirks of a pettifogger. "Some quirk or... evasion." "We ground the justification of our nonconformity on dark subtilties and intricate quirks."
2.
A fit or turn; a short paroxysm; a caprice. (Obs.) "Quirks of joy and grief."
3.
A smart retort; a quibble; a shallow conceit. "Some odd quirks and remnants of wit."
4.
An irregular air; as, light quirks of music.
5.
(Building) A piece of ground taken out of any regular ground plot or floor, so as to make a court, yard, etc.; sometimes written quink.
6.
(Arch.) A small channel, deeply recessed in proportion to its width, used to insulate and give relief to a convex rounded molding.
Quirk molding, a bead between two quirks.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Quirk" Quotes from Famous Books



... happy:—in this track, I say, did my uncle Toby and Trim move for many years, every year of which, and sometimes every month, from the invention of either the one or the other of them, adding some new conceit or quirk of improvement to their operations, which always opened fresh springs of delight in carrying ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock

... subject—all the midshipmen had been insulted in the person of Adair, and it was not long before a bright idea was elicited from among them. On board the ship, belonging to the men, was a large monkey, whom they called Quirk, a very tame and sagacious animal, who had a peculiar aptitude for learning any trick which any person had perseverance enough to teach him. "He'd know more nor any of the ship's boys if it weren't for his tail," the men used to remark ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston

... sects and sects! Pharisees, Essenes, Sadducees—a legion of them! No sooner did they start with a new quirk when it turned political. Coponius, procurator fourth before Pilate, had a pretty time crushing the Gaulonite sedition which arose in this fashion ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London

... delight in taking the reader behind the scenes, and exhibiting the wires. Not so JAMES PAYN. He comes in front, and comments upon the actions of his puppets, or upon men and morals in general, or he makes a quip, or utters a quirk, or proposes a quiddity, and pauses to laugh with you, before he resumes the story, and says, with the older romancers, "But to our tale." Most companionable writer is JAMES PAYN. Tells his story so clearly. A PAYN to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, November 15, 1890 • Various

... dot with a quirk," whispers little Miss Comma, "And you'll please not to pause long for me." "I'm a dot over Comma," says Miss Semicolon, "And you'll pause twice as ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller

... There was another queer quirk to her too. Work up as much sympathy as you wanted to, you couldn't do anything for her. Sadie ain't slow at that, you know. She got int'rested in her right off, and when she discovers how Lindy lives in a couple of cheap rooms down in the Bronx all by herself, and never goes anywhere or has any ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford

... about being involved in action injurious to Pelton's commercial interests; just another odd quirk of Literate ethics. ...
— Null-ABC • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire

... John! We have allowed you to be heard at full length; now you and your set will be silent and hear us. Very palpably your palaver about Mr. Higginson's motion is a dodge, a quirk, a most contemptible quibble, reluctant as we are to speak thus irreverently of the solemn utterances of a Doctor of Divinity. Right well do you know, reverend sir, that the particular form or ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... row of seats a prim little body, full of a severe quaintness in every quirk of dress, tilted her head toward a neighbor, and whispered, "It's that racin' gal ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser

... that would turn out dollars and other coins, remarkably like the real thing. He was not a clever forger; he had learned to write somewhat late in life, and the large, bold round hand, with the capital letters that invariably began with the wrong quirk or twirl, was too characteristic, though he wrote anonymous letters sometimes, risking detection in the enjoyment of what was to him a dear delight, only smaller than that other pleasure of moulding bodies to his own purposes, of malice, ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... get done! Don't stop to quirk your little finger and simper over your plate, Amy," cried Jo, choking on her tea and dropping her bread, butter side down, on the carpet in her haste ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott

... Brother; if there be but a Quirk in the Law offended in this Case, though he fought like Alexander, and preserv'd the whole World from Perdition, yet if he did it against Law, 'tis lawful to hang him; why, what, Brother, is it fit that every impudent Fellow that ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn

... "Tired!" Mr. Quirk snorted derisively. "What tired him? He can't tote enough grub to satisfy his own hunger. Me, I'm double- trippin'—relayin' our stuff to the Summit and breakin' my back at it. I can't make him understand we'd ought to keep the outfit together; he's got ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach

... vicious reasoning, circular reasoning; petitio principii[Lat], ignoratio elenchi[Lat]; post hoc ergo propter hoc[Lat]; non sequitur, ignotum per ignotius[Lat]. misjudgment &c. 481; false teaching &c. 538. sophism, solecism, paralogism[obs3]; quibble, quirk, elenchus[obs3], elench[obs3], fallacy, quodlibet, subterfuge, subtlety, quillet[obs3]; inconsistency, antilogy[obs3]; "a delusion, a mockery, and a snare" [Denman]; claptrap, cant, mere words; "lame and impotent conclusion" ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... out the defendant and offered their services to represent him gratis. Thus the elder counsellor frequently found himself pitted in the justice's courts against his keen-witted and graceless sons, who availed themselves of every obsolete technicality, quirk, and precedent of the law to obstruct justice and worry their dignified parent, whom they addressed as "our learned but erring brother in the law." Not infrequently these youthful practitioners triumphed in these ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

... smiled when Kitty was gone. Somehow a grievous burden had fallen off her mind. Likewise, by some psychological quirk, the idea of leaving Granville and making her home elsewhere no longer struck her as running away under fire. She did not wish to subject Kitty Brooks to the difficulties, the embarrassment that might arise from having ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... from indignation, could only shake his head and frown terribly, at which the midshipmen, as he was not their captain, laughed the more heartily. The Admiral had heard, too, of the trick Jack and his messmates had played with Quirk, the monkey, on Lieutenant Spry, of the marines, and while he told the story as he had received it from Jack, with a few amplifications of his own, the tears ran down his eyes, till Captain Sourcrout, boiling over with ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston

... decreed that it should be otherwise. Having achieved the incredible conviction of O'Connell, by an Irish jury, the great culprit baffled the vengeance of the law by a quirk which a lawyer only could have devised. As regards his Irish policy, Sir Robert Peel never recovered this blow, the severity of which was proportionably increased by its occurrence at a moment of unprecedented success. Resolute not to recur to his ancient Orangeism, yet desperate after ...
— Lord George Bentinck - A Political Biography • Benjamin Disraeli

... uppermost. A horse that's too free frets himself and his rider too, and both on 'em lose flesh in the long run. I'd e'enamost as lives use the whip sometimes, as to be for everlastinly a-pullin' at the rein. One's arm gets plaguy tired, that's a fact. I often think of a lesson I larnt Jehiel Quirk once, for lettin' his ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... unfailing loyalty, follows his master with quip and quirk into exile. When all, even his daughters, had forsaken King Lear, the fool bares himself to the storm and covers the shaking old man with his own cloak; and when in our day we meet the avatars of Trinculo, Costard, Mercutio ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard

... a lady in disguise!" And I quirk my little finger as I drink my coffee and order Eleanor to peer without to ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker

... in hand was conclusively on his side. He had been forced into a fight not of his own choosing; an effort, which had failed, had been made to take him unfairly from behind; he had fired in self-defense after having first been fired upon; save for a quirk of fate operating in his favor, he should have faced odds of two deadly antagonists instead of facing one. What else then than his prompt and honorable discharge? And to top all, the popular verdict was that the killing off of Jess ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb

... into the house and desire some conduct of the lady. I am no fighter. I have heard of some kind of men that put quarrels purposely on others to taste their valour: belike this is a man of that quirk. ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... brothers, Reuben and Burke And Nathan and Jotham and Solomon, lurk Around the corner to see him work— Sitting cross-legged, like a Turk, Drawing the waxed-end through with a jerk, And boring the holes with a comical quirk Of his wise old head, and a knowing smirk. But vainly they mounted each other's backs, And poked through knot-holes and pried through cracks; With wood from the pile and straw from the stacks He plugged the knot-holes and caulked the cracks; And a dipper of water, which one would ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... this Tree, and made me see that we could do it," persisted Polly, giving a little quirk ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney

... charge of the Second Dragoons, General Merritt, then a captain, rode impetuously on, not hearing the recall, followed by Lieutenant Quirk. He noticed a prominent Rebel officer, and, riding toward him, bringing his sabre to a point, he innocently remarked, "Colonel, you are my prisoner!" The officer made a cut at his head: Merritt, dexterously parrying ...
— History of the Second Massachusetts Regiment of Infantry: Beverly Ford. • Daniel Oakey

... the note of calm authority in his voice. He did not know, evidently, that she was more accustomed to giving commands than to obeying them; her lips gave a little quirk of ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower

... didst not ask that at first rather than at last? Thou 'rt too fond of quip and quirk and wordy warfare, John, too much ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin

... spoiled to be charming; she was ingenuous enough to be irresistible. Like two floating logs they met in a head-on rush, caught, and sped along together. Yet had Jeffrey Curtain kept at scrivening for twoscore years he could not have put a quirk into one of his stories weirder than the quirk that came into his own life. Had Roxanne Milbank played three dozen parts and filled five thousand houses she could never have had a role with more happiness and more despair than were in the ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... leap out by dozens, together with the dace, and wreck themselves upon a floating plank. It is the little light-infant of the river, with body armor of gold or silver spangles, slipping, gliding its life through with a quirk of the tail, half in the water, half in the air, upward and ever upward with flitting fin to more crystalline tides, yet still abreast of us dwellers on the bank. It is almost dissolved by the summer heats. ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau

... mock me not! In vain with quirk and jest I strive to quench the passion in my breast; In vain thy blandishments would make me play: Still I desire far more than I can say. My knowledge halts, ah, sweet, be piteous, Instruct me still, while time remains to us, Be what thou wist, ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al

... read something in his eyes, or caught something in his tone that pleased them: for the midwife's mouth had a peculiar quirk and the other women ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof

... petitio principii [Lat.], ignoratio elenchi [Lat.]; post hoc ergo propter hoc [Lat.]; non sequitur, ignotum per ignotius [Lat.]. misjudgment &c 481; false teaching &c 538. sophism, solecism, paralogism^; quibble, quirk, elenchus^, elench^, fallacy, quodlibet, subterfuge, subtlety, quillet^; inconsistency, antilogy^; a delusion, a mockery, and a snare [Denman]; claptrap, cant, mere words; lame and impotent conclusion [Othello]. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... As for the quirk in human nature that shows great gratification at the sight of a man betting on something where he is bound to be the loser: in inelegant language, this relates simply to the universal impulse to laugh at a "sucker." It is just like standing ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page

... the work Of God All-wise, most kind and mighty too. This frees my mind from all vain thoughts which lurk In its recesses, dissipates the murk Of idol worship and religious pride, And makes me proof 'gainst each insidious quirk Thrown out by those who do my views deride; Whose judgment seems to me from truth and ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd

... doing, Bill—building a chicken house?" he asked, a quirk of amusement at the corner of ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower

... now," Heidel said. There was a slight quirk in his mouth, so that his teeth showed between his lips. The butler moved methodically from place to place, pouring wine from ...
— The Eyes Have It • James McKimmey

... beyond the nearest bushes before Yan found another quirk in the trail. It doubled back at Z. He unravelled the double, glanced around, and at O he plainly saw the Deer lying on its side in the grass. He let off a triumphant yell, "Yi, yi, yi, Deer!" and the others came running back just in time to see Yan send an arrow ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton



Words linked to "Quirk" :   oddity, unfamiliarity, crotchet, bead and quirk, twist, strangeness, quirk molding, queerness



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