(v. t.) To procure by petty fraud and trickery; to obtain by mean solicitation.
(v. t.) To avoid; to escape; to neglect; -- implying unfaithfulness or fraud; as, to shirk duty.
(v. i.) To live by shifts and fraud; to shark.
(v. i.) To evade an obligation; to avoid the performance of duty, as by running away.
(n.) One who lives by shifts and tricks; one who avoids the performance of duty or labor.
Example Sentences:
(1) Others have found more striking-power, or more simple poetry, but none an interpretation at once so full (in the sense of histrionic volume) and so consistently bringing all the aspects together, without any shirking or pruning away of what is inconvenient.
(2) A new report is just another excuse for those in power to shirk responsibility, to blame the people they have already degraded once and who cannot defend themselves.
(3) Time at home, alone, without chores, is still often felt as shirking responsibility.
(4) He’s taking a lot of stick at the moment – as everyone is – but it is a measure of him that he fronts it up every day and doesn’t shirk it.
(5) Shirk said one-party China – a country most still associate with little more than economic success and autocratic governance – saw a chance to rebrand itself as a benevolent great power acting in the common good.
(6) Neville has work ahead; the good news is that he will not shirk it.
(7) While some bosses shirk from defending their personal pay deals, Horta-Osório – whose 10-strong management team cashed in on £23m through the same bonus scheme – does not.
(8) Schreiber points out that some of the debates against the ERA were about "masculinity run amok": "Phyllis Schlafly said if we were are treated as equals, then men will shirk their responsibilities," she notes.
(9) Poon said Beijing was attempting to shift the focus on to how much medical attention Liu was receiving to shirk responsibility for its “cold-blooded” treatment of the democracy activist.
(10) They chased every ball, never shirked a tackle and, when they needed a centre-forward to show composure and experience, they had a 32-year-old from Stoke City, with silver flecks in his hair, who passed the test with distinction.
(11) Focusing on glorifying and eternalising the leaders and taking refuge in God and inserting them into hidden shirk [idolatry] through immortalising ephemeral, temporary personalities.
(12) At the same time, we will not shirk from vigorously defending our right and proper role to expose wrongdoing in the public interest."
(13) Are workers seen as a burden, a cost, people who would rather skive and shirk responsibilities, and who have to be supervised rigorously at all times?
(14) Jones said Australia was engaging with the UN with goodwill on how best to tackle the crisis, and not on how to shirk its international responsibilities.
(15) As Republicans we will not shirk our responsibility and we believe that it is now necessary for us to take this lead in bringing the agreement to its conclusion.
(16) "My desire to devolve authority has nothing to do with a wish to shirk responsibility.
(17) But he has never been one to shirk a challenge, choosing to serve in Vietnam so he could stay in the US after moving to New York in the 1960s.
(18) Some European partners are shirking from the task,” she said.
(19) However, human rights groups say Britain is shirking its legal responsibilities – fearful that the route could be seen as a “back door” to Britain – and coercing people into staying put while paying Cyprus to house and feed them.
(20) It’s not me shirking my responsibilities, I take internet security seriously, but I can’t always protect myself against an army of online fraud experts.
Smirk
Definition:
(v. i.) To smile in an affected or conceited manner; to smile with affected complaisance; to simper.
(n.) A forced or affected smile; a simper.
(a.) Nice,; smart; spruce; affected; simpering.
Example Sentences:
(1) 5.14pm GMT Alan Pardew speaks ... With a smirk playing around his chops in a charm offensive on Sky Sports, he says he ‘massively regrets” sticking the hid on Hull City midfielder David Meyler and says he’ll be sitting down for matches in the future.
(2) If Kyrgios cares about his career – and sometimes he is so blase about his success, wealth and celebrity he professes to hate tennis – the hip young dude from Canberra who smirks when he should be smiling, who plainly is struggling with fame, needs to understand he is not the only clown in town.
(3) He often seems mysteriously amused, cocking an eyebrow and pulling a coy, wouldn’t-you-like-to-know smirk, but he likes to laugh out loud, too.
(4) Asked about his repeated gestures, grins and smirks towards the victims, she said it brought back memories of seeing him at Srebrenica.
(5) "Now we know our fortresses are secure," says their president, Tim Farron, a smirk of triumph in his voice, "we can collect 25 or 30 more Tory seats."
(6) They get angry at the justice minister’s smirk as he refutes “any security gap” when in fact the bombs exploded close to an interior ministry building and the headquarters of the Turkish national intelligence organisations.
(7) He has a way of holding a half-smile on his face while listening to his opponent that appears perilously close to a smirk.
(8) It can take all of a parent's ingenuity to get though a shopping trip without unwillingly picking up a tin of Barbie spaghetti shapes, a box of cereal with Lightning McQueen smirking from the front, or a bag of fruit chews with a catchy jingle.
(9) His bastard Ramsay has shown his colors (whatever color is for sadism), but Roose – who abstains from alcohol and only offers a smirk at Lady Stark here, a frown with Jaime Lannister there – is still a cypher.
(10) Bidisha : Two sexist remarks and one misogynist one At a major literary festival, before an event about military fiction, a posh famous English author smirked to me, "What's the difference between a woman and a piece of toast?
(11) I saw the smirk, too, when I went on the road with Prince and the Revolution two years later, accompanying the 1999 tour on several dates through the Midwest.
(12) They might have been even more shaken had they known that the men in casual clothes handing them these strange, badly set little pamphlets – with their funereal black borders and another death’s head leering at them inside next to the smirking wish “Good luck” – were members of New York’s police forces.
(13) With such knowledge comes a predictable illusion of power, though this is all too regularly punctured by the indignity of being kicked out of shiny receptions and told to use an entrance more befitting of our lowly status – or of having my pronunciation of “Southwark Street” incorrectly corrected by a receptionist, who gives her colleague a sidelong smirk, commiserating over my supposed ignorance.
(14) When I look at their faces, I see nothing but bravado, whether it’s Beyoncé’s stoicism, Kerry Washington’s smirk or Serena’s confidence.
(15) The camera cuts to Groves in the audience, who is smirking at Froch's words.
(16) Leonardo DiCaprio plays Calvin Candie, the sadistic plantation owner, smirking into the zoom lens.
(17) A political debate that revolves around sniggering at women’s body parts and smirks about gay hairdressers?
(18) On another occasion, as the judge addressed Mladic about the procedure, the defendant appeared to switch off and turned to the victims again, smirking and nodding at them.
(19) On Thursday, she was pictured semi-naked on the cover of the Daily Star, a cut out of the heads of presenters Ant and Dec over each of her breasts, above a smirking caption claiming that "Naughty Nadine Dorries has boobed again!"
(20) The Catholic father in Ken Loach's Jimmy's Hall is just the most implacable enemy of nice-as-pie communists showing everyone a good time; the village imam in Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Winter Sleep is an ingratiating, smirking creep; and the local rev in The Homesman (as played by John Lithgow) is definitely a weasel, rather too obviously grateful not to have to transport three traumatised frontierwomen back east.