shirk

[shurk] /ʃɜrk/
verb (used with object)
1.
to evade (work, duty, responsibility, etc.).
verb (used without object)
2.
to evade work, duty, etc.
noun
3.
a shirker.
Origin
1625-35; obscurely akin to shark2
Related forms
unshirked, adjective
unshirking, adjective
Synonyms
1. shun, avoid, dodge.
Examples from the web for shirk
  • But do not shirk the responsibility of fitting your paper within the time limits.
  • They have no reason to concede any religious superiority to those who shirk their social responsibility.
  • Their faculty in their programs shirk the responsibility.
  • Afterwards, agencies scrambled to shirk responsibility.
  • Because it is long term, it is in every generation's interests to shirk the responsibility and shift it onto the next one.
  • That's the ideology that allows entire cohorts of people to shirk responsibility for the world in which they live.
  • Departments already have an overload of professors who shirk responsibility.
  • We cannot shirk responsibility by calling the future inevitable.
  • But the parents exert the strongest influence--in one way if they do their best, in another way of they shirk their job.
  • If workers do not believe that they are treated fairly or paid adequately, they are prone to shirk.
British Dictionary definitions for shirk

shirk1

/ʃɜːk/
verb
1.
to avoid discharging (work, a duty, etc); evade
noun
2.
a person who shirks
Word Origin
C17: probably from German Schurke rogue; see shark²

shirk2

/ʃɪːk/
noun
1.
(Islam)
  1. the fundamental sin of regarding anything as equal to Allah
  2. any belief that is considered to be in opposition to Allah and Islam
Word Origin
from Arabic: association
Word Origin and History for shirk
v.

1630s, "to practice fraud or trickery," also a noun (1630s, now obsolete) "a needy, disreputable parasite" [OED], perhaps from German schurke "scoundrel, rogue, knave, villain" (see shark (n.)). Sense of "evade one's work or duty" first recorded 1785, originally in slang. Related: Shirked; shirking.