# Turk
## English
### Alternative forms

* Türk
* Túrk (obsolete)
* Turke (obsolete)

### 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 (t²ür²k̥). See Proto-Turkic *tür(ü)k for more.

### Pronunciation

* (General American) IPA: /tɝk/
* (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /tɜːk/
* Audio (General Australian):(file)
* Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)k

### Noun

Turk (plural Turks)
* A speaker of the various Turkic languages.
* A person from Turkey or of Turkish ethnic descent. [from 12th c.]
* (obsolete) A Muslim. [16th–18th c.]
** c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii], page 268, column 2: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?
** 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 12, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:Compare but our manners unto a Turke [translating Mahometan], or a Pagan, and we must needs yeeld unto them […].
** 1637, William Chillingworth, The Religion of Protestants a Safe Way to Salvation: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.
* a Christian horse-archer in Crusader army (Turcopole).
* (archaic) A bloodthirsty and savage person; vandal; barbarian. [from 16th c.]
** 1579, John Lyly, Euphues, page 42:Was neuer any Impe so wicked and barbarous, any Turke so vyle and brutishe.
** 1760, Tobias George Smollett, editor, The Critical Review: Or, Annals of Literature, Volume 9, page 20: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.
** 1987, Anne Mozley, Essays from "Blackwood", page 21: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.
** 1906, George Meredith, One of our conquerors, page 292: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.
** 1928, Luṫfī Levonian, Moslem mentality: a discussion of the presentation of Christianity to Moslems‎, page 85:They regarded the very word Turk as synonymous with ignorance, impoliteness, and idiocy. To call a man 'Turk' was regarded as a great dishonour to him.
* A member of a Mestee group in South Carolina.
* A person from Llanelli, Wales.
* A Turkish horse.
* The plum curculio.

#### Derived terms

* Grand Turk Island
* out-paramour the Turk
* Turkdom
* Turkish
* Turkism
* Turkland
* Turkless
* Turklike
* Turkness
* Turkology
* Turk's head
* Turkwise
* Young Turk

#### Translations
### Adjective

Turk (comparative more Turk, superlative most Turk)
* Synonym of Turkic
** 2017, Karen Malone, Children in the Anthropocene:Kazakhstan is officially a bilingual country: Kazakh, a Turk language spoken natively by mainly the Kazakh population, has the status of the 'state' language, [...]
* Synonym of Turkish

### Proper noun

Turk
* A surname.

### See also

* Brig o' Turk

### References

* ↑ John A. Simpson and Edmund S. C. Weiner, editors (1989), “Turk”, in The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, →ISBN.

### Further reading

* Turk on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

### Anagrams

* Kurt, Truk

## Afrikaans
### Noun

Turk (plural Turke, diminutive Turkie)
* Turk (person from Turkey or of Turkish descent)

#### Related terms

* Turks
* Turkye

## Dutch
### Pronunciation

* Audio:(file)
* Rhymes: -ʏrk

### Noun

Turk m (plural Turken, diminutive Turkje n, feminine Turkse)
* a Turkish person, a Turk

#### Related terms

* Turkije

### Anagrams

* rukt