Cheerful. Webster’s Dict., 1828. Probably (see quot. 1824) connected with chirp, chirpy.
1824. It is not uncommon to see thirty or forty women and children comfortably stowed away in one of the large covered canal boats, as chirp as a flock of blackbirds.—New Bedford Mercury, May 28.
1843. A young Miss of Droneville … once replied to a question as to her mother’s health—an old bedridden dame of eighty, “Why, she is not very chirk, but more chirker than she has been; all our folks appear more chirker than they really feel, in order to chirk her up.” [Given as an antiquated rustic expression.]—Yale Lit. Mag., i. 26 (Feb.).
1857. Chirk and lively we both were.—Knick. Mag., xlix. 39 (Jan.).
1857. The old man sent out for some breakfast, gave us a good feed, and told us to look as chirk and lively as we could.—Id., xlix. 182 (Feb.).
1871. See CHIPPER.
1878. I didn’t feel real cherk this week, so’t I didn’t go to sewin’ s’ciety, and seems as if I didn’t reelly know a thing.—Rose T. Cooke, ‘Happy Dodd,’ chap. xxvii.
