sb. and a. Sc. Also birky. [Connection has been suggested with ON. berkja to bark, boast, which might do for the sense, but the form is uncertain.]
A. sb. 1. A familiar or jocular term for a man, often connoting self-assertion, crustiness, or the ‘having a mind of his own’; sometimes slightly depreciatory = ‘strutting fellow,’ but often, like ‘fellow,’ ‘carle,’ ‘chield,’ without definable force.
1724. Ramsay, Poems (1800), 92 (Jam.). Spoke like ye’rsell, auld birky; never fear.
1795. Burns, A Man’s a Man, iii. Ye see yon birkie ca’d ‘a lord,’ Wha struts, an’ stares, an’ a’ that.
1816. Scott, Old Mort., xli. Folks may speak out afore they birkies now.
1836. J. Mayne, Siller Gun, in Chambers’ Hum. Sc. Poems, 126. Auld birkies, innocently slee, Wi’ cap and stoup.
2. A game at cards, ‘Beggar-my-neighbour.’
1777. Brand, Pop. Antiq. (1849), II. 396.
1827. J. Wilson, Noct. Ambr., Wks. 1855, I. 302. Catch me at the cards, unless it be a game at Birky, for I’m sick o’ Whust itself.
B. adj. Somewhat irrepressible, active, spirited.
1821. Ann. Par. Dalmailing, 40 (Jam.). Kate, being a nimble and birky thing, was … useful to the lady.
1822. Steam-Boat, 38 (Jam.). A gay and birky callan, not to be set down by a look or a word.
1830. Galt, Lawrie T., VI. viii. (1849), 289. A very fashious trade that of school-maistering either hardy lasses or birkey boys.
