To stab with a dirk or dagger.

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1689.  

        For a misobliging word,
She’ll durk her neighbour ov’r the boord,
And then she’ll flee like fire from flint,
She’ll scarcely ward the second dint.
W. Cleland, ‘Poems.’ (N.E.D.)    

2

1808.  

        Intwine their twisting limbs, the gun forgo,
Wrench off the bayonet and dirk the foe.
Joel Barlow, ‘The Columbiad,’ vii. 356. (N.E.D.)    

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1823.  If I wished to be social and get drunk with them, I dare not; for they would take the liberty to scratch me like a tiger, and gouge, and dirk me. I cannot part with my nose and eyes.—W. Faux, ‘Memorable Days in America,’ p. 194 (Lond.).

4

1823.  [I was] well pleased to turn my back on all the spitting, gouging, dirking, duelling, swearing, and staring of Old Kentucky.—Id., p. 103.

5

1825.  He had previously changed his mind as to the dirking, probably because it was to much trouble…. [He] swore the fellow that made them [my boots] so tight ought to be “dirked,” the usual phrase for the punishment of slight offences among these humane republicans.—J. K. Paulding, ‘John Bull in America,’ pp. 27, 101 (N.Y.).

6

1830.  The assassin determined to dirk him in the street on his return.—Mass. Spy, June 2.

7

1837.  He might have been disarmed and shot, or dirked, by the other party.—Mr. Wise in the House of Representatives, Feb. 17: Cong. Globe, p. 225.

8

1847.  One who had killed his man in a duel, or dirked his friend in a scuffle.—J. K. Paulding, ‘American Comedies,’ p. 181 (N.Y.).

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