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awk

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awk¹

  • /ɔːk/ UK
  • /ɔːk/ US
  • /ɑːk/ cot caught merger

Sounds like auk · Rhymes with -ɔːk, -ɑːk

Where it comes from

From Middle English awke, from Old Norse ǫfugr, ǫfigr, afigr (“turned backwards”) (whence Danish avet (“backwards”), Swedish avig (“turned backwards”)), from Proto-Germanic *abuhaz. Cognate with German äbich, Gothic 𐌹𐌱𐌿𐌺𐍃 (ibuks, “turned back”). Akin to Sanskrit अपाच् (apāc, “turned away”). Compare dialectal Danish ave (“to turn”), Dutch averechts (“opposite, backwards, contrary”), Icelandic öfga (“to reverse”).

adjective more awk · most awk

  1. obsolete Odd; out of order; perverse.
  2. obsolete Wrong, or not commonly used; clumsy; sinister. the awk end of hir charmed rod
  3. UK, dialectal, obsolete Clumsy in performance or manners; not dexterous; awkward. […] whose wild and madbrain humour nothing fitteth so just, as the stalest dudgen or absurdest balductum, that they or their mates can invent in odd and awk speeches […]

    Similar: unhandy

  4. US, slang, of a situation Awkward; uncomfortable.

adverb more awk · most awk

  1. obsolete Perversely; in the wrong way. Ill huſbandry drowſeth at fortune ſo awke, / good huſbandry rowſeth him ſelfe like a hawke.

awk²

  • /ɔːk/ UK
  • /ɔːk/ US
  • /ɑːk/ cot caught merger

Sounds like auk · Rhymes with -ɔːk, -ɑːk

proper noun

  1. Alternative letter-case form of AWK One thing awk is good for is picking out and possibly rearranging columns within command output.

awk³

  • /ɔːk/ UK
  • /ɔːk/ US
  • /ɑːk/ cot caught merger

Sounds like auk · Rhymes with -ɔːk, -ɑːk

interjection

  1. alternative Alternative spelling of och

AWK⁴

Where it comes from

From the initial letters of the surnames of its authors: Alfred Aho, Peter J. Weinberger, and Brian Kernighan.

proper noun Awk · awk

  1. A Unix scripting language for text processing, or the command line interface itself. I used C, Perl, the Bourne shell, and some AWK and Tcl to implement these projects.

Awk⁵

proper noun

  1. Alternative letter-case form of AWK Growing company needs an experienced part-time computer person familiar in Unix, Awk Programming and Script Programming.

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MLA

"awk." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/awk. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

awk. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/awk

Chicago

"awk." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/awk.

BibTeX
@misc{awk_2026,
  title = {awk},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/awk},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}