SHIRKING • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Shirking

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/ʃˈərkɪŋ/ Listen

verb

Shirk v. t. (past & past part. shirked; pres. part. shirking)

To procure by petty fraud and trickery; to obtain by mean solicitation. "You that never heard the call of any vocation,... that shirk living from others, but time from Yourselves."

To avoid; to escape; to neglect; implying unfaithfulness or fraud; as, to shirk duty. "The usual makeshift by which they try to shirk difficulties."

Shirk v. i.

To live by shifts and fraud; to shark.

To evade an obligation; to avoid the performance of duty, as by running away. "One of the cities shirked from the league."

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Etymology of 'Shirking'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Shirking" Quotes from Famous Books

... may be termed military discipline fall under this head. Even when the functions of the commander are undeveloped, and war is still "an affair of armed mobs," shirking—a form of crime which, to do justice to primitive society, is rare—is promptly and effectively resented by the host. Amongst American tribes the coward's arms are taken away from him; he is made to eat with the dogs; or perhaps a shower of arrows causes him to "run the gauntlet." ...

— Anthropology • Robert Marett

... the lover, when he knows that his love is answered, to realise that it is all the result of some preceding molecular action of the brain? That does not seem to me so much a truculent statement as a foolish statement, shirking, like a glib and silly child, the most significant of data. And I think we shall do well to say to our scientist, as courteously as Sir Lancelot said to the officious knight, who proffered unnecessary service, that we have no need for ...

— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson

... conferences. Their constitution was absolutely free from all theoretical or rigid forms or ordinances. Whoever found that his interests were especially affected by the subject under discussion sent representatives to the diet of the league, and these usually discharged their duties faithfully, without shirking the long and arduous trip even during the winter season. The conferences held in this way were probably wider in their scope than those of any other power of the time. Usually, however, not political, but commercial, matters were discussed. There was no common treasury. Whenever money was required ...

— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... with the gathering dusk, he entered his room at Marot's ordinary. He would go to the Palace that night; it would be the act of a boy to fling away through the darkness, shirking a duty his position demanded. He would go and be merry, watching Evelyn in the gown that ...

— Audrey • Mary Johnston

... for the soldier whose presence in the old chateau and whose behavior were equally puzzling, and as there was no one else, Sally had no idea of shirking the immediate task. In her Camp Fire kit she ...

— The Campfire Girls on the Field of Honor • Margaret Vandercook

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