{"id":23896,"date":"2025-02-13T17:07:50","date_gmt":"2025-02-13T17:07:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=23896"},"modified":"2025-02-13T17:07:51","modified_gmt":"2025-02-13T17:07:51","slug":"villainous-sharks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=23896","title":{"rendered":"Villainous Sharks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In one of the Danish lessons I did recently, I learnt the word <strong>skurk<\/strong>, which means villain or baddie, and wondered where it comes from and what other words it&#8217;s related to. Let&#8217;s find out.<\/p>\n<p><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/macorig\/86036205\/in\/photolist-8AXyR-49Lp23-FXJoL-dbFMyi-49Gjqt-49Lp39-kgDby-49LoWj-bBvqsu-5bqdjj-49LoTb-49Lp4u-s77bPG-49Lp8G-7Y1jpJ-49GjB8-8AXyN-4V7JdV-jsEYG-2LTWEG-uAAvu-4UUnb1-CnoYi-5wUv1-7rjea7-4VE1N3-4mDHEK-jsF6P-72fZGF-2gTkmoE-qkvwt-hCLcP-a6iNJ1-cfcR4-o5dfo8-jdc6o-dX6vFy-31XjJa-31XiSc-322UAq-2izjP2T-322UhG-iaxiWc-Wcb8k-5nY4Sk-orGNVX-zvYr7U-HLKBQ-7zGQEu-6pYqRb\" title=\"shark\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/38\/86036205_4cff81aed3_z.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"440\" alt=\"shark\"\/><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>According to <a href=\"https:\/\/ordnet.dk\/ddo\/ordbog?query=skurk\">Den Danske Ordbog<\/a>, a <strong>skurk<\/strong> [\u02c8sgu\u0250\u032fg] is a person who behaves in an unattractive, dishonest, or malicious manner, or a fictional character in a piece of fiction with the role of the hero&#8217;s evil counterpart and enemy or a person or thing that is or is made responsible for trouble or misfortune. In other words, a villain, baddie, wretch, cuplrit, reprobate or rogue [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.bab.la\/dictionary\/danish-english\/skurk\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>It comes from Low German <strong>schurke<\/strong> (villian, scoundrel), from Middle High German <em>schurgen<\/em> (to shove, push, egg on), possibly from Old High German <em>scuren<\/em> (to stir, stoke up), from Proto-West-Germanic <em>*skeran<\/em> (to shear, cut), from Proto-Germanic <em>*skeran\u0105<\/em> (to shear), from Proto-Indo-European <em>*(s)ker-<\/em> (to cut) [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/skurk#Danish\">source<\/a>]. <\/p>\n<p>Related words in Danish include <strong>skurkagtig<\/strong> (villainous), <strong>skurkeagtig<\/strong> (miscreant) and <strong>superskurk<\/strong> (super villain).<\/p>\n<p>Related words in other languages include <strong>Schurke<\/strong> (villain, scoundrel) in German,  <strong>skurk<\/strong> (crook, bad guy, rogue, villain) in Swedish, and <strong>skurk<\/strong> (crook) in Norwegian  [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/Schurke#German_Low_German\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>The English <strong>shark<\/strong>, as in someone who exploits others by trickery, lies, extortion, etc, also comes from the same roots, as might <strong>shark<\/strong>, as in a scaleless, predatory fish of the superorder <em>Selachimorpha<\/em> [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/shark#English\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>Another English word that possibly comes from the same roots is <strong>shirk<\/strong>, as in to avoid responsibility, duty, obligations, etc [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/shirk#English\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>Incidentally, before the word <strong>shark<\/strong> arrived in English, such fish were known as <strong>dogfish<\/strong> or <strong>hayes<\/strong>, which comes from Dutch <strong>haai<\/strong> (shark, a ruthless or greedy person) or from West Flemish <strong>haaie<\/strong> (shark), from Old Norse <em>h\u00e1i<\/em>, an abbreviation of <em>h\u00e1karl<\/em> (shark), from <em>h\u00e1r<\/em> (shark) and <em>karl<\/em> (a man). Related words include <strong>Hai<\/strong> (shark) in German, <strong>haj<\/strong> (shark) in Swedish and Danish, and <strong>\u0430\u043a\u0443\u043b\u0430<\/strong> (akula &#8211; shark) in Russian, Belarusian, Bulgarian and Ukrainian [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/shirk#English\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.japanesepod101.com\/member\/go.php?r=759259&amp;i=b0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/images\/banners\/banner_japanesepod.jpg\" alt=\"The Fastest Way to Learn Japanese Guaranteed with JapanesePod101.com\" width=\"630\" height=\"83\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In one of the Danish lessons I did recently, I learnt the word skurk, which means villain or baddie, and wondered where it comes from and what other words it&#8217;s related to. Let&#8217;s find out. According to Den Danske Ordbog, a skurk [\u02c8sgu\u0250\u032fg] is a person who behaves in an unattractive, dishonest, or malicious manner, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,93,100,102,104,107,171,116,10,177,31,178,36,44,45,202,52,67,75],"tags":[349,158,348,138,281,345,346,347,163],"class_list":["post-23896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-belarusian","category-bulgarian","category-danish","category-dutch","category-english","category-etymology","category-flemish-vlaams","category-german","category-language","category-middle-high-german","category-norwegian","category-old-high-german","category-old-norse","category-proto-germanic","category-proto-indo-european","category-proto-west-germanic","category-russian","category-swedish","category-ukrainian","tag-dogfish","tag-etymology","tag-haye","tag-language","tag-omniglot","tag-shark","tag-skurk","tag-villain","tag-words"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23896"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23897,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23896\/revisions\/23897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}