Etymology Clipping of percolate (verb) and percolator (noun).
1
Informal To make (coffee) in a percolator or a drip coffeemaker.
I’ll perk some coffee.
2
Informal Of coffee: to be produced by heated water seeping (“percolating”) through coffee grounds.
The coffee is perking.
While the coffee perked, she flipped idly through a gardening magazine and scanned an article on the war against aphids.1996, Sherry Lewis, This Montana Home, Harlequin Books, page 288:
My ragged rontes all shiver and shake, As doen high Towers in an earthquake: They wont in the wind wagge their wrigle tailes, Perke as Peacock: but nowe it auales.1579, Edmund Spenser, “Februarie”, in The Shepheardes Calender, London: Hugh Singleton:
All, joy’d at th’ omen, their foundation laid: And in short time a perk new wall is made.1640, John Gower, transl., Ovid’s Festivalls, Cambridge, Book 4, April, p. 96:
perk
noun
Etymology Clipping of percolate (verb) and percolator (noun).
1
A percolator, particularly of coffee.
perk
verb
Etymology Origin uncertain. Perhaps a metathesis of prick.
1
To make trim or smart; to straighten up; to erect; to make a jaunty or saucy display of.
[the squirrel] whisks his brush And perks his ears, and stamps and scolds aloud1785, William Cowper, The Task, London: J. Johnson, Book 6, p. 247:
The blue jay was having a fit, and the sapsucker perked his bright-eyed little head at him not more than a dozen feet away.1924, James Oliver Curwood, chapter 4, in A Gentleman of Courage, Toronto: Copp Clark:
2
To appear from below or behind something, emerge, pop up, poke out.
The heads of plants above the crack’d ground perk:1640, John Gower, transl., Ovid’s Festivalls, Cambridge, Book 4, April, p. 77:
A white Paris net sort of cap, glittering with spangles, and incircled by a chaplet of artificial flowers, with a little white feather perking from the left ear, is to be my head-dress.1753, Samuel Richardson, The History of Sir Charles Grandison, London, Volume 1, Letter 22, p. 159:
2 more examples
1842, Robert Browning, “The Pied Piper of Hamelin” in Lyrics of Life, Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1866, pp. 35-36, lines 152-153, […] suddenly up the face Of the Piper perked in the market-place,
1937 Robert Byron, The Road to Oxiana, London: Macmillan, Part 4, “Kavar,” p. 159, A strong warm wind carried a sound of chopping with it and a rustle of dead plane-leaves; through those leaves perked the green crooks of young ferns.
3
Obsolete To exalt oneself; to bear oneself loftily.
1574, Arthur Golding (translator), Sermons of Master John Calvin, upon the Booke of Job, London: Lucas Harison and George Byshop, Sermon 38, The first upon the tenth Chapter, For whereof commeth thys hypocrisie in the popedome, that men shall preache free will, merits, and satisfactions, and set vp their bristles in suche wise, and beare themselues in hande that they may come perking before God, yea and preace thither lyke shamelesse strumpets.
[…] our Lord had never any such design, to set up a sort of men in such distance above their brethren; to perk over them, and suck them of their goods by tricks […]1683, Isaac Barrow, A Treatise of the Pope’s Supremacy, London: Brabazon Aylmer, Supposition 5, page 140:
Etymology The origin is uncertain. Perhaps a variant of peer + -k (frequentative ending).
1
Dated To peer; to look narrowly, sharply, or inquisitively.
He is a tall, thin, bony man, with an interrogative nose, and little restless perking eyes, which appear to have been given him for the sole purpose of peeping into other people’s affairs with.1835, Charles Dickens, “The Election for Beadle”, in Sketches by Boz, 3rd edition, volume 1, London: John Macrone, published 1837, page 32:
His seconde hawke wexyd gery And was with flyenge wery. She had flowyn so oft, That on the rode loft She perkyd her to rest.c. 1503–1512, John Skelton, Ware the Hauke; republished in John Scattergood, editor, John Skelton: The Complete English Poems, 1983, →OCLC, page 63, lines 66–70:
Then sir, let me say, that Mineruas owle was proude, for perking vnder [h]ir golden target […]1591, Robert Greene, Greenes Farewell to Folly, London: T. Gubbin & T. Newman:
3 more examples
O! what a ravishment ’thad beene, to see Thy little Saviour perking on thy Knee!1633, Francis Quarles, “On the Infancie of our Saviour”, in Divine Fancies Digested into Epigrammes, Meditations, and Observations, London: John Marriot, page 3:
With respect to walking, it is the favourite exercise of my life; I sometimes divert myself with objects on the road, which, my being on a level with them, offers to observation; and yet, which, had I been perked up beyond my natural height on the back of a horse, would have been all overlooked.1779, Samuel Jackson Pratt, chapter 24, in Shenstone-Green: or, the New Paradise Lost, volume 1, London: R. Baldwin, pages 205–206:
Laugh out in the loose green jerkin / That’s fit for a goddess to work in, / With shoulders brown, / And the wheaten crown / About thy temples perking.1814, Leigh Hunt, The Descent of Liberty, a Mask, London: […] Gale, Curtis, and Fenner, […], published 1815, →OCLC, scene III, page 64: