Awk

Pronunciation

• RP IPA: /ɔːk/
• US IPA: /ɔːk/
• US cot-caught IPA: /ɑːk/
• Homophones: auk

Origin

From Old Norse Ç«fugr, Ç«figr, afigr ("turned backwards") ( >

Danish avet ("backwards"), Swedish avig ("turned backwards")), from Proto-Germanic

Online Etymology Dictionary|awkward

. Cognate with German äbich, Gothic 𐌹𐌱𐌿𐌺𐍃 (ibuks, "turned back")

Germanic cognates in

. Akin to Sanskrit अपाच् (apāc, "turned away")

Webster 1913|awk

. Compare dialect Danish ave ("to turn"), Icelandic öfga ("to reverse").

Full definition of awk

Adjective

1. (obsolete) Odd; out of order; perverse.
2. (obsolete) Wrong, or not commonly used; clumsy; sinister; as, the awk end of a rod (the butt end).
3. (obsolete, UK, dialect) Clumsy in performance or manners; unhandy; not dexterous; awkward.
4. (US slang, of a situation) Awkward; uncomfortable.

Adverb

1. (obsolete) Perversely; in the wrong way.

Proper noun

1. (computing) A Unix scripting language or the command line interface itself.

Noun

1. (usually attributive, computing) Code written in or skill in using the awk language.I used C, Perl, the Bourne shell, and some awk and tcl to implement these projects.

Anagrams

• kaw, Kwa