chirk up

English

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium. Particularly: “Blend of cheer up and perk up?”)

Verb

chirk up (third-person singular simple present chirks up, present participle chirking up, simple past and past participle chirked up)

(idiomatic, transitive) To make more cheerful; to cause to perk up.
- 1912, Zona Gale, Christmas‎^[1]:
  "Well, I think," said Mis' Jane Moran, "that we've hit on the only way we could have hit on to chirk each other up over a hard time."
- 1917, Sewell Ford, Wilt Thou Torchy:
  My idea was to chirk him up at the start.
(idiomatic, intransitive) To become more cheerful; to perk up or become animated or enthusiastic.
- 1894, Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), Tom Sawyer Abroad‎^[2]:
  "Go ahead," he says, and I see Jim chirk up to listen.
- 1908, Grace Livingston Hill Lutz, Marcia Schuyler‎^[3]:
  Now you jest wipe your eyes and chirk up.
- 2006, Anna Cypra Oliver, Assembling My Father: A Daughter's Detective Story, page 10:
  She was terrified but in control. n. How, on the trip around the country my parents took the year after my birth, their mood sank so low that even my brother sensed it. "Chirk up, guys," he said. "Chirk up." They laughed at that.