quirk

[ kwurk ]

noun

1. a peculiarity of action, behavior, or personality; mannerism:

   He is full of strange quirks.

2. a shift, subterfuge, or evasion; quibble.
3. a sudden twist or turn:

   He lost his money by a quirk of fate.

4. a flourish or showy stroke, as in writing.
5. Architecture.
   1. an acute angle or channel, as one dividing two parts of a molding or one dividing a flush bead from the adjoining surfaces.
   2. an area taken from a larger area, as a room or a plot of ground.
   3. an enclosure for this area.
6. Obsolete. a clever or witty remark; quip.

adjective

1. formed with a quirk or channel, as a molding.

quirk

/ kwɜːk /

noun

1. an individual peculiarity of character; mannerism or foible
2. an unexpected twist or turn

   a quirk of fate

3. a continuous groove in an architectural moulding
4. a flourish, as in handwriting

Derived Forms

• ˈquirkily, adverb
• ˈquirkiness, noun
• ˈquirky, adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of quirk¹

First recorded in 1540–50; origin uncertain

Word History and Origins

Origin of quirk¹

C16: of unknown origin

Synonym Study

See eccentricity.

Example Sentences

Faced with the quirk of playing in Tampa Bay’s home stadium, they looked like a road team.

From Washington Post

This can cause quirks, so try setting it up on one smartphone before you bring in other people.

From Popular-Science

Humans, with all our quirks and biases, choose what experiment to conduct in the first place, and how to do it.

From Nautilus

The company has succeeded by exploiting a regulatory quirk to create a virtual monopoly in publicly-traded shares of cryptocurrency.

From Fortune

Baikal seals are fans of bite-sized portions, and this dietary quirk may be why the seals are thriving.

From Science News

And that luxury may be a quirk of America, or at least white America.

From The Daily Beast

Familiarity with search-engines helps, a strange quirk of working in this retro medium.

From The Daily Beast

Each member of the Bad News Bears of a team Terry ends up coaching has what should be a chuckle-worthy quirk.

From The Daily Beast

Mental illness—real OCD, for example—is only a far far distant cousin of the cute personality quirk.

From The Daily Beast

Enormously Oversized Rhinestone Earrings J. Crew is revered for its ability quirk up standby classics.

From The Daily Beast

"This was a real horse on a real flight to the winning-post," added Crozier, with a quirk at the corner of his mouth.

From Project Gutenberg

It was the familiar voice he had often tried to place, but Floyd knew nobody named Quirk.

From Project Gutenberg

She set herself to the purpose of making Mrs. Quirk happy, devising a hundred means to accomplish this.

From Project Gutenberg

This Kathleen knew well, and she encouraged Mrs. Quirk to admire the flowers and other decorations.

From Project Gutenberg

"If I knew the man that had done it, sure I would make it quite unpleasant for him," said Mrs. Quirk.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• aberration
• characteristic
• eccentricity
• foible
• habit
• idiosyncrasy
• kink
• mannerism
• peculiarity
• trait
• twist
• vagary