quirk

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   An unusual habit or feature of someone's personality.

   One of his quirks is talking to his houseplants every morning.

2. 2
   noun

   A strange or unexpected aspect of something.

   By a quirk of fate, the two strangers turned out to be cousins.

3. 3
   verb

   To twist or curve something suddenly, especially part of the face.

   She quirked an eyebrow at his odd suggestion.

First attested in the 1540s. Of uncertain origin. Possibly from Middle English *querk, from Old Norse kverk (“a bend or angle, especially below a cross-beam or below the chin, the bight of an axe", also "throat, gullet”), from Proto-Germanic *kwerkō (“throat, gullet”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷerh₃- (“to devour; maw”). Cognate with Scots querk (“throat", also "any hollow in the body, such as an armpit, groin, instep, etc.”), Icelandic kverk (“interior angle”). Also partially from dialectal quirk, querk (“a whim, fancy, fuss, huff, complaint", also "to peevishly grumble, grunt, sigh, croak,…

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