quirk

[kwurk] /kwɜrk/
noun
1.
a peculiarity of action, behavior, or personality; mannerism:
He is full of strange quirks.
2.
a shift, subterfuge, or evasion; quibble.
3.
a sudden twist or turn:
He lost his money by a quirk of fate.
4.
a flourish or showy stroke, as in writing.
5.
Architecture.
  1. an acute angle or channel, as one dividing two parts of a molding or one dividing a flush bead from the adjoining surfaces.
  2. an area taken from a larger area, as a room or a plot of ground.
  3. an enclosure for this area.
6.
Obsolete. a clever or witty remark; quip.
adjective
7.
formed with a quirk or channel, as a molding.
Origin
1540-50; origin uncertain
Can be confused
quark, quirk.
Synonyms
1. See eccentricity.
Examples from the web for quirk
  • Still, the quirk is more the rule than the exception for tennis players under pressure.
  • If these urges were confined purely to the founding generation, this would be a historical quirk.
  • The early arrival-albeit only by a minute-is due to a complex quirk of the leap-year calendar.
  • How remiss of me and an interesting quirk of academic isolation.
  • The survival of our village, and many others, is due to a quirk in history and to geography.
  • quirk displayed weapons that he said had been confiscated by unarmed officers during random searches.
  • It is a quirk of timing that he should face the scrutiny of a judiciary that so studiously ignored his predecessors.
  • The standard theory of bad moods is rooted in a psychological quirk known as ego depletion.
  • And, as it happens, it is turning out to be a rather sensible quirk.
  • It is also a quirk of geography compounded by economics.
British Dictionary definitions for quirk

quirk

/kwɜːk/
noun
1.
an individual peculiarity of character; mannerism or foible
2.
an unexpected twist or turn: a quirk of fate
3.
a continuous groove in an architectural moulding
4.
a flourish, as in handwriting
Derived Forms
quirky, adjective
quirkily, adverb
quirkiness, noun
Word Origin
C16: of unknown origin
Word Origin and History for quirk
n.

1560s, "quibble, evasion," of unknown origin, perhaps connected to German quer (see queer (adj.)) via notion of twisting and slanting; but its earliest appearance in western England dialect seems to argue against this source. Perhaps originally a technical term for a twist or flourish in weaving. Sense of "peculiarity" is c.1600.