▪ I. cawk, n.1
Also cawke, (8 calk, 9 cauk, caulk).
[A variant spelling of cauk.]
1. ‘A miner's term for native sulphate of barium’ (Watts Dict. Chem.), or heavy spar.
| 1653 [see cauk]. 1676 J. Beaumont in Phil. Trans. XI. 731 The Stones..move in Vinegar..sending forth bubbles, as I find Cawk will very freely. 1722 Phil. Trans. Abr. II. 553 Cawk is a ponderous white Stone found in the Lead Mines. 1783 Withering in Phil. Trans. LXXIV. 307 Terra ponderosa Vitriolata, Calk or Cauk. 1806 Gazetteer Scotl. 398 In a matrix of sulphate of barytes or cawk. 1811 Pinkerton Petral. II. 574 The..cauk-spar, since called barytes. 1813 Bakewell Introd. Geol. (1815) 289 The matrix..is caulk or the sulphat of barytes. 1877 Ouida Puck III. 25, I picked him out an atom of cawke and a morsel or two of Blue-John. |
2. = cauk, chalk.
▪ II. cawk, n.2
(kɔːk)
[Imitative.]
The cry of some birds, rooks, divers, etc.
| 1856 Kane Arct. Expl. I. xxi. 269 These last flew very high, emitting at regular intervals their reed-like ‘kawk’. 1879 Jefferies Wild Life in S.C. 276 Those [rooks] that are diving utter a gurgling sound like the usual cawk prolonged—‘caw-wouk’. |
Hence cawk v.
| 1761 Life J. Churchman (1780) 297, I thought I saw also the raven fly, cawking, to and fro, but he did not return. |
▪ III. cawk
var. of cauk, caulk.