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Rouse vs Firk - What's the difference?

rouse | firk |

As a proper noun rouse

is .

As a verb firk is

to carry away or about; carry; move.

As a noun firk is

a stroke; lash or firk can be a freak; trick; quirk.

rouse

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl) reuser, ruser, originally used in English of hawks shaking the feathers of the body. Figurative meaning "to stir up, provoke to activity" is from 1580s; that of "awaken" is first recorded 1590s.

Alternative forms

* rouze (obsolete)

Noun

(en noun)
  • an arousal
  • (military, British, and, Canada) The sounding of a bugle in the morning after reveille, to signal that soldiers are to rise from bed, often the rouse .
  • Verb

    (rous)
  • to wake or be awoken from sleep, or from apathy.
  • to rouse the faculties, passions, or emotions
  • * Atterbury
  • to rouse up a people, the most phlegmatic of any in Christendom
  • * Shakespeare
  • Night's black agents to their preys do rouse .
  • * Alexander Pope
  • Morpheus rouses from his bed.
  • (senseid) To provoke (someone) to anger or action.
  • * Milton
  • Blustering winds, which all night long / Had roused the sea.
  • To cause to start from a covert or lurking place.
  • to rouse a deer or other animal of the chase
  • * Spenser
  • Like wild boars late roused out of the brakes.
  • * Alexander Pope
  • Rouse the fleet hart, and cheer the opening hound.
  • (nautical) To pull by main strength; to haul
  • (obsolete) To raise; to make erect.
  • (Spenser)
    (Shakespeare)

    Etymology 2

    From carouse, from the phrase "drink carouse" being wrongly analyzed as "drink a rouse".

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • an official ceremony over drinks
  • And the King's rouse the heaven shall bruit again,
    Re-speaking earthly thunder. - "Hamlet" by William Shakespeare, act 1 scene 2 lines 127-128
  • A carousal; a festival; a drinking frolic.
  • * Tennyson
  • Fill the cup, and fill the can, / Have a rouse before the morn.
  • wine or other liquor considered an inducement to mirth or drunkenness; a full glass; a bumper.
  • firk

    English

    Alternative forms

    * (l)

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) firken, .

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To carry away or about; carry; move.
  • To drive away.
  • (obsolete) To have sexual intercourse, to copulate.
  • I'll fer him, and firk him, and ferret him. - Shakespeare : IV, iv
  • To rouse; raise up.
  • To move quickly; go off or fly out suddenly; turn out.
  • * Ben Jonson
  • A wench is a rare bait, with which a man / No sooner's taken but he straight firks mad.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A stroke; lash.
  • Etymology 2

    Frobably an alteration of freak.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A freak; trick; quirk.
  • Derived terms
    * (l)