Lirt

noun, verb

noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Deception; guile. UK, dialectal
  2. 2
    A cheat; a go-by. UK, dialectal
Verb
  1. 1
    To deceive; beguile. UK, dialectal, transitive
  2. 2
    To toss. UK, dialectal, transitive
  3. 3
    To cheat; befool. UK, dialectal, transitive
  4. 4
    To walk or move in a quick, lively, or pert manner. UK, dialectal, intransitive
  5. 5
    To gambol; frisk. UK, dialectal, intransitive

Synonyms

All synonyms
cheatcheat

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle English lirten, lurten (“to cheat”), from Old English *lyrtan (found only in belyrtan (“to deceive”)), from Proto-West Germanic *lurtijan (“to deceive”), from Proto-Indo-European *lerd- (“to bend, crook”). Cognate with Scots lirt (“to cheat, deceive, delude”), Middle High German lürzen (“to deceive”), Middle High German lerz, lurz, lorz (“left, left-handed”), Old English lort, lyrt (“crooked”).

Etymology 2

Origin obscure. Perhaps alteration of lirk (“to jerk”).

Related phrases

go by

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.