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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

murk.

Dark, murky.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/mɝk/General-American/mɜːk/Received-Pronunciation
  1. Dark, murky.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English merke, mirke, from Old English mirce, myrce (“dark, gloomy, evil”) and Old Norse myrkr (“dark, murky”), both from Proto-Germanic *merkuz (“dark”), from Proto-Indo-European *mergʷ- (“to flicker; to darken; to be dark”). Cognate Danish mørk (“dark”), Norwegian mørk (“dark”), Swedish mörk (“dark”), Icelandic myrkur (“dark”), as also Albanian murg (“dark”), Proto-Slavic *morkъ (“darkness”), Lithuanian márgas (“multicolored”), murzinas (“dirty, spoiled”), Ancient Greek ἀμορβός (amorbós, “dark”).

noun/mɝk/General-American/mɜːk/Received-Pronunciation
  1. Darkness, or a dark or gloomy environment.

    uncountable
Where this word comes from

From Middle English mirke, merke, from Old English mirce, myrce (“darkness, gloom”) and Old Norse myrkr (“darkness, gloom”), both from Proto-Germanic *merkwą, *mirkwiz (“darkness”), Proto-Indo-European *mergʷ- (“to flicker; to darken; to be dark”).

verb/mɝk/General-American/mɜːk/Received-Pronunciation
  1. To make murky or be murky; to cloud or obscure, or to be clouded or obscured.

    intransitive
Where this word comes from

From Middle English mirken, probably from Old Norse myrkja, myrkva (“to make dark, darken”), from Proto-Germanic *mirkwijaną, *mirkwajaną (“to make dark”), from Proto-Indo-European *mergʷ- (“to flicker; to darken; to be dark”).

verb/mɝk/General-American/mɜːk/Received-Pronunciation
  1. To kill or eliminate.

    ambitransitive · slang
  2. To beat up; to injure.

    ambitransitive · slang
  3. To eliminate; to defeat overwhelmingly.

    ambitransitive · slang
Where this word comes from

Possibly an alteration of merc, from clipping of mercenary. First attested in the 1990s.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.