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eary; to give pain; to annoy; -- used only impersonally at present. To see this sight, it irks my very soul. Shak. It irketh him to be here. M. Arnold.

me; tedious; disagreeable or troublesome by reason of long continuance or repetition; as, irksome hours; irksome tasks. For not to irksome toil, but to delight, He made us. Milton.

A birch tree. [Prov. Eng.] "The silver birk." Tennyson.

Birchen; as, birken groves. Burns.

A lively or mettlesome fellow. [Jocular, Scot.] Burns.

To shriek; to gnash; to utter harsh or shrill cries. [Obs.] All full of chirkyng was that sorry place. Cheucer.

A kind of dagger or poniard; -- formerly much used by the Scottish Highlander. Dirk knife, a clasp knife having a large, dirklike blade.

Darkness. [Obs.] Chaucer.

To beat; to strike; to chastise. [Obs.] I'll fer him, and firk him, and ferret him. Shak.

A varying measure of capacity, usually being the fourth part of a barrel; specifically, a measure equal to nine imperial gallons. [Eng.]

See Gherkin.

A church or the church, in the various senses of the word; esp., the Church of Scotland as distinguished from other reformed churches, or from the Roman Catholic Church. [Scot.] Jamieson.

Turned upward; bent. [Obs.] Rom. of R.

A clergyman or officer in a kirk. [Scot.]

A churchyard. [Scot.]

Darkness; gloom; murk. "In mirk and mire." Longfellow.

Dark; gloomy; murky. [Archaic] Spenser. -- Mirk"some*ness, n. [Archaic]

Dark; gloomy. See Murky.

the point or line; hence, an artful evasion or subterfuge; a shift; a quibble; as, the quirks of a pettifogger. "Some quirk or . . . evasion." Spenser. We ground the justification of our nonconformity on dark subtilties and intricate quirks. Barrow.

Having, or formed with, a quirk or quirks.