English

Alternative forms

• Turke (obsolete)

Noun

Turk ‎(plural Turks)

1. A person from Turkey.
2. A speaker of the various Turkic languages.
3. (obsolete) A Muslim.
   • 1603, John Florio, translating Michel de Montaigne, Essayes, London: Edward Blount, OCLC 946730821, II.12:

     Compare but our manners unto a Turke [transl. Mahometan], or a Pagan, and we must needs yeeld unto them […].

   • Chillingworth

     It is no good reason for a man's religion that he was born and brought up in it; for then a Turk would have as much reason to be a Turk as a Christian to be a Christian.

4. (archaic) A bloodthirsty and savage person; vandal; barbarian.^[1][from 16th c.]
   • 1579, John Lyly, Euphues, page 42:

     Was neuer any Impe so wicked and barbarous, any Turke so vyle and brutishe.

   • 1760, Tobias George Smollett (editor), The Critical Review: Or, Annals of Literature, Volume 9, page 20:

     A sort of primitive barbarity distinguishes the whole; no variety of character appears; and to call a man Turk is to say, that he is jealous, haughty, covetous, ignorant, and lascivious; at the same time that a certain dignity of gait, and magnificence of manners, gives him the appearance of generosity and true greatness of soul.

   • 1987, Anne Mozley, Essays from "Blackwood", page 21:

     A bad temper does seem often favourable to health. The man who has been a Turk all his life lives long to plague all about him.

   • 1906, George Meredith, One of our conquerors, page 292:

     As much as the wilfully or naturally blunted, the intelligently honest have to learn by touch: only, their understandings cannot meanwhile be so wholly obtuse as our society's matron, acting to please the tastes of the civilized man—a creature that is not clean-washed of the Turk in him—barbarously exacts.

   • 1928, Luṫfī Levonian, Moslem mentality: a discussion of the presentation of Christianity to Moslems, page 85:

     They regarded the very word Turk as synonymous with ignorance, impoliteness, and idiocy. To call a man 'Turk' was regarded as a great dishonour to him.

5. (US, slang) A homosexual, assuming the active role in anal sex.
   • 1938, Aaron Joshua Rosanoff, Manual of psychiatry and mental hygiene, page 159:

     The clannishness of homosexuals has led to the development of special slang expressions among them: Temperamental or queer, a homosexual person. Turk, wolf, or jocker, an active sodomist.

   • 1993, Jonathon Green, Slang down the ages: the historical development of slang, page 231:

     […] turd-packer, hitchhiker on the Hershey highway (fr. the US Hershey chocolate bars), shirt-lifter (Australian), wind-jammer, fart-catcher, dirt tamper, pillow-biter and Turk (fr. the alleged national propensity for sodomy).

   • 2006, Deborah Cameron, On language and sexual politics, page 35:

     One of the many underworld synonyms for an active pederast is turk.

6. A member of a Mestee group in South Carolina.

Translations

Derived terms

• Turk's head

Anagrams

• Kurt

References

1. ↑ J[ohn] A. Simpson and E[dward] S. C. Weiner, editors (1989) The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, ISBN 978-0-19-861186-8.

Dutch

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ʏrk

Noun

Turk m ‎(plural Turken, diminutive Turkje n, feminine Turkse)

1. a Turkish person, a Turk

Related terms

• Turkije

Anagrams

• rukt

Albanian

Noun

turk m (indefinite plural turq, definite singular turku, definite plural turqit)

1. Turk

Related terms

• Turqi
• turqisht
• turqishte

Swedish

Noun

turk c

1. a Turk; person from Turkey

Declension

See also

• turkiska
• turkisk