Turk
nounadjectiveproper nouncommon in dialogue
- United Kingdom//tɜːk//
- United States//tɝk//
A person of an ethnically diverse linguistic group that speaks the Turkic languages.
noun
- 1
A person of an ethnically diverse linguistic group that speaks the Turkic languages.
- 2
A member of a Turkic-speaking ethnic group native to Anatolia (which comprises the bulk of their modern nation-state of Türkiye).
- 3
obsoleteA Muslim.
Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers—if the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me—with two Provincial roses on my razed shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry of players?
Compare but our manners unto a Turke [translating Mahometan], or a Pagan, and we must needs yeeld unto them[…].
It is no good reason for a man's religion that he was born and brought up in it; for then a Turk would have as much reason to be a Turk as a Christian to be a Christian.
- 4
a Christian horse-archer in Crusader army (Turcopole).
- 5
archaicA bloodthirsty and savage person; vandal; barbarian.
Was neuer any Impe so wicked and barbarous, any Turke so vyle and brutishe.
A sort of primitive barbarity distinguishes the whole; no variety of character appears; and to call a man Turk is to say, that he is jealous, haughty, covetous, ignorant, and lascivious; at the same time that a certain dignity of gait, and magnificence of manners, gives him the appearance of generosity and true greatness of soul.
A bad temper does seem often favourable to health. The man who has been a Turk all his life lives long to plague all about him.
As much as the wilfully or naturally blunted, the intelligently honest have to learn by touch: only, their understandings cannot meanwhile be so wholly obtuse as our society's matron, acting to please the tastes of the civilized man—a creature that is not clean-washed of the Turk in him—barbarously exacts.
- 6
A member of a Mestee group in South Carolina.
- 7
A person from Llanelli, Wales.
- 8
A Turkish horse.
- 9
The plum curculio.
Etymology
From Middle English Turke, Turk, from Old French Turc, from Medieval Latin Turcus, from Byzantine Greek Τοῦρκος (Toûrkos), from Classical Persian تُرْک (turk), from Middle Persian [script needed] (twlk' /turk/), from Old Turkic 𐱅𐰇𐰼𐰜 (t²ẅr²ẅk²). See Proto-Turkic *tür(ü)k for more.
adjective
- 1
Synonym of Turkic.
Kazakhstan is officially a bilingual country: Kazakh, a Turk language spoken natively by mainly the Kazakh population, has the status of the 'state' language, [...]
- 2
Synonym of Turkish.
proper noun
- 1
A surname.
Forms
- plural
- Turks
- comparative
- more Turk
- superlative
- most Turk
Turk · A person of an ethnically diverse linguistic group that speaks the Turkic languages.
turkey · A bird in the genus Meleagris with a fan-shaped tail and…Turkey · A country located in Eastern Thrace in Southeastern Europe…Turkish · The official language of Turkey, Republic of Cyprus…