quirk

American  

[kwurk] / kwɜrk /

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.

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adjective

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

quirk British  

/ 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

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Related Words

See eccentricity.

Other Word Forms

• quirkily adverb
• quirkiness noun
• quirky adjective

Etymology

Origin of quirk

First recorded in 1540–50; origin uncertain

Example Sentences

He had wondered, at times, if he was imagining Captain’s quirks.

From Literature

During testing, I ran into another maddening keyboard quirk, where I tapped the right letters but iOS spit out the wrong ones.

From The Wall Street Journal

One quirk of dragon fruit farming is that its flowers only bloom at night and into the early hours of the morning.

From BBC

And this is further underlined by another quirk which means being in the Conference League could be the worst thing financially.

From BBC

Then, too, there’s greater risk of dysfunction with more people, each with quirks, needs and expectations.

From The Wall Street Journal

Related Words

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