▪ I. auk
(ɔːk)
Also 8 alk, 8–9 awk.
[cogn. with Sw. alka, Da. alke:—ON. álka.]
Any bird of the family Alcidæ of diving birds, predominantly black, white, or grey in colour, inhabiting mainly the colder parts of the northern oceans and characterized by short wings, tail, and legs, and webbed feet. The auks include the guillemot, puffin, razor-bill, little auk, and the extinct and flightless great auk.
| [1580 Tusser Husb. (1878) 140 Ill husbandry drowseth At fortune so auke: Good husbandry rowseth himselfe as a hauke.] 1674 [see razor-bill 1 a]. 1678 Ray Willughby's Ornith. 323 The Bird called the Razor-bill in the West of England, the Auk in the North, the Murre in Cornwal. 1796 Morse Amer. Geog. II. 17 The alks build upon rocks. 1856 Kane Arctic Exp. I. xxiv. 320 Wounded awks. 1865 Gosse Land & Sea (1874) 44 That rarest of British birds, the great auk. 1866 T. Edmondston Orkney Gloss. 4 Auk, the common guillemot. 1802, 1894 [see gare-fowl]. |
▪ II. auk(e, -ly, -ness, -ward
obs. ff. awk, etc.