kirk
noun
a church.
kirk
1 American
[kurk, kir k]
/ kɜrk, kɪrk /
noun
-
kirks
plural
-
Chiefly Scot. and North England. a church.
-
the Kirk, the Church of Scotland (Presbyterian), as distinguished from the Church of England or the Scottish Episcopal Church.
Kirk
2
American
[kurk]
/ kɜrk /
noun
-
Grayson (Louis), 1903–1997, U.S. educator: president of Columbia University 1953–68.
-
a male given name.
kirk
1
British
/ kɜːk, kɪrk /
noun
-
a Scot word for church
-
a Scottish church
Kirk
2
British
/ kɜːk, kɪrk /
noun
Kirk
3
British
/ kɜːk /
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of kirk
1150–1200; Middle English (north and Scots ) < Old Norse kirkja church
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
About 100 people from all aspects of Scottish life will take part in the cavalcade along the Royal Mile, arriving at the historic kirk at about 13:30.
From BBC ● Jul. 4, 2023
"After all," he said, "it is well known that Kate Forbes is a member of the free kirk, and there are certain things that logically, implicitly flow from that."
From BBC ● Feb. 21, 2023
"How is charlie kirk 28?," chimed Hanna Gais, a senior research analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center.
From Salon ● Feb. 14, 2022
Along the low Ayrshire coast it is all boats and fishing and drinking your ale or "whusky" and going to the kirk.
From Time Magazine Archive
We came, too, to one big dreary house and a drearier kirk.
From Our Journey to the Hebrides by Elizabeth Robins Pennell
Mayor Kirk Watson, a Democrat, said that Austinites have a right to know what happened and "a right to feel safe in their city" during a media briefing on Sunday.
From BBC ● Sep. 22, 2026
Real America’s Voice offers shows including “American Sunrise” and “The Charlie Kirk Show,” according to its website.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 21, 2026
This sounds preposterous today, but the Dodgers had not won more games since 1988, the Kirk Gibson year.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 19, 2026
In early January 2025, Dans and American Daybreak helped arrange a visit by Donald Trump Jr. and late conservative activist Charlie Kirk to the Arctic island.
From Salon ● Sep. 16, 2026
“I’m sure some of the church members took Kirk home with them.”
From "While the World Watched: A Birmingham Bombing Survivor Comes of Age during the Civil Rights Movement" by Carolyn Maull McKinstry
Another of Thomson's Presbyterian kirks, perhaps the most dramatic of all, Queen's Park church, was destroyed by an incendiary bomb dropped by the Germans in 1943.
From BBC ● Mar. 31, 2017
The streets just like hedgeraws, and the kirk steeples like poplar-trees; and then the folk as thrang on the planestanes on a week-day as if a' the kirks were scaling at ance!
From Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 16 by Various
It ought to be building kirks and schoolhouses, and sending Bibles to the far ends o' the earth.
From Scottish sketches by Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
The service began with a psalm sung after the fashion followed in the Scotch kirks of a century ago—very slowly, and much through the nose.
From Between Sun and Sand A Tale of an African Desert by W. C. (William Charles) Scully
He 'll hae a fair trial, Mains"—Netherton's tone was distinctly severe—"an' mony a trial he's hed in his day, they say: wes't three an' twenty kirks he preached in, afore ye took him?
From Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers by Ian Maclaren
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
