Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US black, also mirk) to leave.

2000		Ebonics Primer at www.dolemite.com 🌐 merk Definition: to leave. Example: Yo, I’m about to merk.
2003		Eble Campus Sl. Nov. 1: bounce – leave [...] Also mirk.

2. (orig. black) to surpass, in fig. use, to kill.

1991		Wu Tang Clan ‘It’s All About Me’ 🎵 I chop off the head of the guy that despise / First to merk me meets the controversy.
1999		rec.music.hip-hop 17 Feb. 🌐 The sad thing is, if Big-L wasn’t a rapper then niggas wouldn’t even care that he got merked. Theres hundreds of kids everyday that get slain just like that in ghettos across the country.
2002		50 Cent ‘Wangsta’ 🎵 And you play me close, for sure Imma pop my heat / Niggas sayin they gone merk 50 How? We ridin around wit guns the size of Lil’ Bow Wow.
2004		Observer Music Monthly 9 May 40: Grime works to ritualise and contain aggression between crews through battles and clashes in which the aim is to ‘merk’ rival MCs on the set – kill them lyrically.
2005		DJ Cameo 1Xtra 11 July [BBC radio] The hits out there absolutely merking the dance-floor.
2008		A. Wheatle Dirty South 57: There’s bare shootings in this estate. I wonder who got merked this time.
2011		G. Knight Hood Rat 108: If one of them was merked, they would all big up how they were going to kill other people.
2012		C. Eble (ed.) UNC-CH Campus Sl. 2011 7: MURK — murder + kill ‘We’re totally going to get murked in this neighborhood.’ .
2014		T.I. ‘Sugar Cane’ 🎵 Get murked for a brick if your wife ain’t shit.
2016		A. Wheatle Crongton Knights 9: It’d never been safe round here, but since the latest merking it’d been mental.
2020		G. Krauze What They Was 20: They spit rap and grime bars about bussin guns and murking man .

3. (UK teen) to humiliate; to act aggressively.

2016		Independent 5 Jan. 🌐 There is the edgy street language of gangs which has given us shank and jook for stab; and merk to hurt or humiliate.
2016		Stormzy ‘Scary’ 🎵 When I get nervous, man, I start merking.
2016		Skepta ‘Lyrics’ 🎵 See me on the TV, hi mum / Murk MCs when the mic’s in my palm.
2020		G. Krauze What They Was 30: I murked this brer in the final [...] It was a wrap after that.