Sc. and north. dial. Also 5, 9 lerk, 9 lurk. A fold in the skin; a wrinkle.
c. 1400. Destr. Troy, 3029. Hir forhed [was] full fresshe & fre to be-holde,… Nouþer lynes ne lerkes but full lell streght.
1728. Ramsay, Last Sp. Miser, xv. Some loo to keep their skins frae lirks.
1737. Meston, Poet. Wks. (1767), 145. The Mare … had no lirk in all her leather.
1880. Antrim & Down Gloss., s.v., The child’s that fat I can’t get dryin’ all his lerks.
transf. fig. a. 1687. R. McWard, Earnest Contend. for Faith (1723), 307 (Jam.). It is the Lord we have to do with, who knows to seek out the Lirks of our Pretences.
1802. Scott, Minstr. Scott. Bord. (1803), III. 281. The bought i’ the lirk o’ the hill.
a. 1835. J. M. Wilson, Tales of the Borders (1857), I. 207. Till I find her dead body in the lirk of the hill.
1849. Ld. Cockburn, Circuit Journeys (1883), 359. A … button … was found twisted in what the witness called ‘a lurk,’ or fold, of the sheet.
1894. Crockett, Raiders (ed. 3), 63. The … herds’ cothouses in the lirks of the hills.
Hence Lirk v., to wrinkle.
1680. Law, Mem. (1818), 176–7. It [the elephant] has … a rough tannie skin, and lirking throughout all its body; the trunk of it lirks, and it contracts it, and draws it in … as it pleases.
1880. Antrim & Down Gloss., s.v., The uppers of your boots is all lerked.
