kirk

• kyrk (obsolete)

Inherited from Northern Middle English kyrke, possibly borrowed from Old Norse kirkja, or possibly from Old English ċiriċe. Doublet of church.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /kɜːk/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /kɜɹk/

• Audio (General American):

  (file)

• (Northumbria) IPA^(key): /kɔʶːk/
• (Scotland) IPA^(key): /kɪɾk/
• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)k

kirk (plural kirks)

1. (Northern England and Scotland) A church.
   • 1798, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner:

     The Ship was cheer'd, the Harbour clear'd— / Merrily did we drop / Below the Kirk, below the Hill, / Below the Light-house top.

   • 1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide:

     When she sang in the kirk, folk have told me that they had a foretaste of the musick of the New Jerusalem, and when she came in by the village of Caulds old men stottered to their doors to look at her.

   • 1941 January, C. Hamilton Ellis, “The Scottish Station”, in Railway Magazine, page 3:

     But long, long ago an enthusiastic reporter called it a "fairy palace," and the office building on the west side was once a church. Hence, in North British phraseology, to "gang tae the Kirk" meant to be had up on the carpet.

Inherited from Northern Middle English kyrke, from either Old Norse kirkja or Old English cirice.

kirk (plural kirks)

1. church
2. temple

kirk (third-person singular simple present kirks, present participle kirkin, simple past and past participle kirkit)

1. (transitive) to bring to church for burial

• kirkit

• “kirk”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present, →OCLC.