wark meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

wark

noun

UK /wɔːk/ · US /wɔɹk/

Etymology From Middle English werk, warch, from Old English wærc, wræc (“pain, suffering, anguish”), from Proto-Germanic *warkiz (“pain”), from Proto-Indo-European *werǵ- (“to make, work, act”). Cognate with Swedish värk (“ache, pain”), Icelandic verkur (“pain”). Related to work.

Northern England, Scotland, UK, Dialectal Pain; ache.

Derived terms: bellywark, headwark

wark

verb

Etymology From Middle English werken, warchen, from Old English wærcan (“to be in pain”). Cognate with Swedish värka (“to ache, pain”), Icelandic verkja (“to pain”). See above.

To be in pain; ache.

wark

noun

Etymology See work.

Scotland, Obsolete Work.

That September (1582) in time of vacance, my uncle Mr. Andrew, Mr. Thomas Buchanan and I, hearing that Mr. George Buchanan was weak, and his history under the press, passed over to Edinburgh anes errand to visite him, and to see the wark.1819, Malcolm Laing, The History of Scotland, page 141:
We'dn done a pratty day or two's wark afore t' sodgers geet at us.1860, Sir James Phillips Kay- huttleworth, Scarsdale; or, Life on the Lancashire and Yorkshire border, page 85:

2 more examples

“Mair wark," replied Tibbie, looking round on her well-kept pans and candlesticks.1864, Eliza Tabor, St. Olave's: A Novel, page 18:
Uprose anither fearsome cry, Uprose exultingly; He couldna hear the words they spak', Yet corpse-pale turned he. The awsome flames had dune their wark, Nae form was left to see, Nought but a grim and blackened stake, A ghastly vacancy.1868, Eneas Sweetland Dallas, Once a Week, page 317:

Scotland, Obsolete A building.

'Yet this imposition,' says Nicoll, 'seemed not to thrive; for at the same instant God frae the heavens declared his anger by sending thunder, and unheard tempests, and storms, and inundations of water, whilk destroyed their common mills, dams, and warks, to the town's great charges and expenses.' Eleven mills belonging to Edinburgh, and five belonging to Heriot's Hospital, all upon the Water of Leith, were destroyed on this occasion, 'with their dams, water-gangs, timber and stone- warks, the haill wheels of their mills, timber graith, and haill other warks.'1858, Robert Chambers, Domestic Annals of Scotland, page 253:
They speak in high terms of "his extraordiner panes and grait cair he had in that Wark, baith by his advyce, and in the building of the same.1859, William Steven, Frederick William Bedford, History of George Heriot's hospital, page 54:

1 more example

And because the said Thomas Fallisdaill and John Semple ar alreddy enterit to the said wark, [ and ] coft materiallis as thai declairit, and ressauit ane pairt of the said taxatioun;1870, Sir James David Marwick, Records of the Convention of the Royal Burghs of Scotland, page 265: