Meaning

noun a relatively long dagger with a straight blade

originEtymology unknown, apparently from Scots dirk. First attested in 1602 as dork, in the later 17th century as durk. The spelling dirk is due to Johnson's Dictionary of 1755. Early quotations as well as Johnson 1755 suggest that the word is of Scottish Gaelic origin, but no such Gaelic word is known. The Gaelic name for the weapon is biodag. Gaelic duirc is merely an 18th-century adoption of the…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0