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• yerk v. bind tightly; beat, whip, strike; snatch, wrench, etc.
• waith n. a piece of property which is found ownerless

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yerk v. bind tightly; beat, whip, strike; snatch, wrench, etc.

“yerk v. bind tightly; beat, whip, strike; snatch, wrench, etc.”

8th July 2008

yerk

Yerk (or yark) is recorded in medieval English, and although it has generally fallen out of use south of the border, it is still known and used in Scots and in some regional dialects of English. Used in the sense "bind tightly", often in relation to garments or their production, yerk was often used specifically in reference to the drawing together of stitches and leather in shoe-making.

There are many examples of this use of yerk in nineteenth century Scottish texts. In a footnote to The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805), Sir Walter Scott describes a heated exchange between the Captain of Bewcastle and the semi-legendary warrior of Liddesdale, Watt Tinnlin, who was also a cobbler by profession. On finding Tinnlin struggling in boggy ground, the Captain insulted him, saying: " ‘Sutor Watt, you cannot sew your boots; the heels risp (grate), and the seams rive (tear)." Tinlinn replied, "If I cannot sew, I can yerk", and shot an arrow through the captain’s thigh, binding it tightly to his saddle. This meaning of yerk gave rise to the term yerkin, denoting either the side-seam of a boot or shoe, or the seam by which the hind part of the upper leather of a shoe is joined to the front part.

A yerkin could also be a thrashing or beating, and according to Robert Ford’s Tayside Songs (1895), a person who had had their ears boxed was lug-yerkit. The word can also be used of various other nagging aches. An edition of Blackwood’s Magazine from 1826 included the line: "Onything’s mair preferable than yerk, yerkin at everything said by a wiser man than yoursel", and a bout of toothache inspired the comment "That tooth’s been yarkin’ awa’ the last fourteen days" in a 1905 issue of the Caledonian Medical Journal.