Other forms: shirking, shirked, shirks
To shirk is to avoid work or duty you should be doing. Shirk your duty, shirk responsibility, never shirked anything.
It nearly always takes an object such as duty or responsibility, and the accusation is of leaving the work to somebody else. A shirker was a serious insult in wartime, when it meant avoiding service.
1verbshirkTo avoid work or duty you should be doing.
“She never shirked the hard jobs, even when everyone else found an excuse.”
shirk is an avoiding.
First recorded around 1633, perhaps from German Schurke, a rogue.
German
Schurke — rogue, knave
English, today
shirk
First use appears c. 1633, in the publications of Shackerley Marmion, apparently from association with shark, or otherwise directly from German Schurke (“rogue, knave”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA