English

Adjective

awk ‎(comparative more awk, superlative most awk)

1. (obsolete) Odd; out of order; perverse.
2. (obsolete) Wrong, or not commonly used; clumsy; sinister

   the awk end of a rod (the butt end).

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Golding to this entry?)

3. (obsolete, Britain, dialect) Clumsy in performance or manners; unhandy; not dexterous; awkward.
4. (US slang, of a situation) Awkward; uncomfortable.

Adverb

awk ‎(comparative more awk, superlative most awk)

1. (obsolete) Perversely; in the wrong way.

Proper noun

awk

1. (computing) A Unix scripting language or the command line interface itself.

Noun

awk ‎(uncountable)

1. (usually attributive, computing) Code written in or skill in using the awk language.

   I used C, Perl, the Bourne shell, and some awk and tcl to implement these projects.

References

• awk in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• Notes:

1. ↑ “awkward” in Douglas Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary (2001).
2. ↑ Germanic cognates in Deutsches Wörterbuch
3. ↑ awk in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913

Anagrams

• kaw, Kwa