A Scottish word for a dark place or shadow; sometimes used dialectally for a dark corner.
From Middle English and Scots dialect, possibly related to 'dark.' The etymology is uncertain, but it appears in Scottish regional vocabulary meaning shadowy or dark spaces.
Scottish dialect words like 'derk' are windows into how medieval English speakers saw the world—this one suggests that darkness wasn't abstract but physical, something you could be *in*, like a room.
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