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NORWEGIAN BOKMÅL · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

purk.

a police officer; cop

4 characters1 syllables approx.Norsk bokmål language

Meaning & usage

noun/pʉrk/
  1. a police officer; cop

    colloquial · derogatory · masculine
    Pass deg så du ikke blir stoppet av purken.
  2. the police; police officers collectively

    collective · colloquial · derogatory · masculine
    Det er mer purk i gatene.
Where this word comes from

Probably from Månsing purk (“pig”), a word from the secret cant historically used by itinerant traders in western Sweden; ultimately related to purke (“sow”). The police sense developed through derogatory comparison with a pig. First attested in 1927 in Norwegian slang. Compare Swedish purk (“police officer, cop”).

noun/pʉrk/
  1. a small boy, especially a very young boy

    dialectal · masculine
Where this word comes from

Borrowed from Low German purk (“small person”), of uncertain further origin. The related Danish word is traced to dialectal German Pfurch, likewise of uncertain origin. First attested in 1892 in the dialectal sense “small boy”. Compare Danish purk (“young boy”).

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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.