Sorry to burst your bubble, Miley Cyrus, but your famous 2013 MTV Video Music Awards performance was definitely not the first time the word “twerk” was used. Indeed, the dance move’s name even predates its development in the 1990s.
The Oxford English Dictionary announced that it has tweaked (or should we say “twerked”) the definition of the word “twerk,” noting that its origins go all the way back to the 1820s.
Researchers discovered a note by a nun that used the word as a noun. “Really the Germans do allow themselves such twists & twirks of the pen, that it would puzzle any one,” the nun wrote.
By 1901, the spelling of the word changed to “twerk” and it had become a noun. Still, “The precise origin of the word is uncertain, but it may be a blend of twist or twitch and jerk, with influence from quirk n.1 at the noun and from work v. in reference to the dance,” Katherine Connor Martin, head of U.S. Dictionaries, wrote.
Twerk has been in the OED since August 2013, just days after the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards, when Cyrus twerked with Robin Thicke.
As CNN notes, the OED definition of “twerk” as a verb is: “To move (something) with a twitching, twisting, or jerking motion.” The second definition is: "To dance to popular music in a sexually provocative manner, using thrusting movements of the bottom and hips while in a low, squatting stance.”
image courtesy of INFphoto.com
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