Turk — English Dictionary

Noun

1. A person of an ethnically diverse linguistic group that speaks the Turkic languages.

2. A member of a Turkic-speaking ethnic group native to Anatolia (which comprises the bulk of their modern nation-state of Türkiye).

   Examples

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   The people of Matabello, like those of most of the Mahometan villages of East Ceram and Goram, amused me much by their strange ideas concerning the Russian war. They believe that the Russians were not only most thoroughly beaten by the Turks, but were absolutely conquered, and all converted to Islamism! And they can hardly be convinced that such is not the case, and that had it not been for the assistance of France and England, the poor Sultan world have fared ill. Another of their motions is, that the Turks are the largest and strongest people in the world - in fact a race of giants; that they eat enormous quantities of meat, and are a most ferocious and irresistible nation.

3. A Muslim.

   Usage

   • Obsolete

   Examples

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   Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers—if the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me—with two Provincial roses on my razed shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry of players?

   Compare but our manners unto a Turke [translating Mahometan], or a Pagan, and we must needs yeeld unto them[…].

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   It is no good reason for a man's religion that he was born and brought up in it; for then a Turk would have as much reason to be a Turk as a Christian to be a Christian.

4. a Christian horse-archer in Crusader army (Turcopole).

5. A bloodthirsty and savage person; vandal; barbarian.

   Usage

   • Archaic

   Examples

   Was neuer any Impe so wicked and barbarous, any Turke so vyle and brutishe.

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   A sort of primitive barbarity distinguishes the whole; no variety of character appears; and to call a man Turk is to say, that he is jealous, haughty, covetous, ignorant, and lascivious; at the same time that a certain dignity of gait, and magnificence of manners, gives him the appearance of generosity and true greatness of soul.

   A bad temper does seem often favourable to health. The man who has been a Turk all his life lives long to plague all about him.

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   As much as the wilfully or naturally blunted, the intelligently honest have to learn by touch: only, their understandings cannot meanwhile be so wholly obtuse as our society's matron, acting to please the tastes of the civilized man—a creature that is not clean-washed of the Turk in him—barbarously exacts.

   They regarded the very word Turk as synonymous with ignorance, impoliteness, and idiocy. To call a man 'Turk' was regarded as a great dishonour to him.

6. A member of a Mestee group in South Carolina.

7. A person from Llanelli, Wales.

8. A Turkish horse.

9. The plum curculio.

Adjective

1. Synonym of Turkic.

   Examples

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   Kazakhstan is officially a bilingual country: Kazakh, a Turk language spoken natively by mainly the Kazakh population, has the status of the 'state' language, [...]

2. Synonym of Turkish.

Proper noun

1. A surname.

   Related words

   Brig o' Turk

Noun

1. a native or inhabitant of Turkey

   Broader terms

   Turki