A motley combination of Anglo-Saxon, Latin, and Germanic dialects, the English language (more or less as we know it) coalesced between the 9th and 13th centuries. Since then, it has continued to import and borrow words and expressions from around the world, and the meanings have mutated. (Awesome and awful once meant nearly the same thing.) Some specimens in the English vocabulary have followed unusually circuitous routes to their place in the contemporary lexicon, and this series, Lexical Investigations, unpacks those words hiding in our midst.“Awk” is an obsolete word meaning “turned the wrong way,” and originally awkward just meant “in an awk direction,” just as forward means to move to the front and backward means to move to the rear. An awk direction could be back-handed, upside-down, or in reverse of the expected order (though if you compliment a professional tennis player on a great awkward stroke instead of a strong backhand, don’t expect them to feel flattered). In the sixteenth century, fradulent behavior that was not straightforward was said to be awkward—that’s a far cry from today, when sometimes the most awkward thing a person can do is be too honest.
These days, you might hear groups of teenagers acknowledging awkward silences. Over the last decade, high school and college students have occasionally used a playful hand gesture called “awkward turtle” to express a remarkably uncomfortable moment, though this has largely fallen out of use at this point.
Popular References:
Awkward, a comedy series on MTV that premiered in 2011 about the life of teenagers.
The Awkward Comedy Show, a documentary of stand-up performances by four comedians. According to the show’s website, “It’s a film to showcase a category of black comedian rarely witnessed: the nerd variety.”
Related Quotations:
“Young recruits are awkward in their marching, and clumsy in their manual labour.”
—George Crabb, English synonymes explained, in alphabetical order (1816)
“The awk end here is, of course, the wrong end, that which was not towards them.”
— Oxford Journals, Notes and queries (1853)
“I don’t believe she ever had an awkward age; she was probably graceful at sixteen.”
—Constance Fenimore Wilson, East Angels (1886)
“In comedy, awkward is king.”
—Robert Lloyd, LA Times, March 29, 2009.
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Read our previous post in our on-going series Lexical Investigations about the word labyrinth.
Awwwww so your telling me I’m not using my favorite word in the right context!?!?! Well that stinks! Well, now I’ll try to use it right. But in the mean time…anyone wanna suggest another favorite word?
I Love doing the “Awkward turtle” ! Strange to think such a word once only meant the wrong direction..
these articles are usually quite insightful.
Love Melanie’s comment… haha
This moment is sooooooo AWKWARD
“Well…” (crickets chirping) “This is awkward.
To Long
yes melanie
Whom do I contact to request permission to republish and/or translate an article on your blog for my blog, http://www.Le-mot-juste-en-anglais.com? We would naturally credit your blog and provide a link to it.
Sincerely
Jonathan Goldberg
Did you mean fraUdulent?
Feel really awkward when we dont know the meaning
I have a dig bick.
That awkward when you read the first sentence wrong.
That awkward moment when you just read that wrong too.
This just got awkward.
*awkward squid*
@Melanie: No pun intended.
Awkward is an awk-word.
That awkward moment when you read the awkward moment comment of someone else
I am currently in highschool and whilst many people will acknowledge awkward silences, the ‘awkward turtle’ is still used as well as the hand gesture ‘awkward muffin’ which probably isn’t as widely known.
*’innappropriate muffin’
that awkward moment when you didn’t even know there were other definitions to the word awkward
Awkward..? Hahaa
Thats awk
Hawkward.
So… Backwards turtle? :-3
Fail
This post is awkward
That awkward moment when Dictionary.com misspells a word……
I love these articles, and finding the origins of words or new words. Do them more often, I check for new ones often. 
I have a friend who would use the awkward turtle as a signal to save her from a guy who’s chatting her up or trying to dance with her when she’s not feeling it.
That awkward moment when you realize you can’t spell “fraudulent.”
Wow didn’t know that.Now back to homework! 
No ID
that awkward moment when almost every comment has the word awkward in it o.o
I’m a little creeped out, being that when I came here to look and see what all the definitions of “awkward” were, this was posted.
Or, sticking to the theme of the other comments… That awkward moment when you got to look up awkward and find it posted on the front page.
“Furl the sails” he said with an awkward swallow in the middle.
A crew member secretly flipped him the bird.
Being the youngest officer, and younger than most of the crew, his voice often betrayed him. Where was the arrogance and certainty he was bred to exude – and that he felt in his genes? -RC
So that explains why half of the awkward turtle is the opposite direction of the other half…
*Penguin. I ment awkward penguin meme.
….awkward…
I knew this word for along time. Awkward moment of silence. This is an awkward word.
AWK is a portable text and numerical
processing language found on many platforms.
This post is geeky awk
Awkward has another meaning not mentiioned here, which I assume is not used in American English. It means ‘difficult’, either in the sense of ‘obstinate’ or in the sense of ‘fiddly’. You might say “Stop being awkward”, “You’re just being awkard” to someone who nixes every suggestion you make. If you can’t comfortably manoeuvre behind the washing machine to fix that broken pipe, as you lie contorted on your back you might say “This is really awkward”.
that awkward moment when almost every comment has the word awkward in it o.o
I’ve never seen “the awkward turtle”. Although my sister has this habit of calling everything awkward, especially when people are quiet for too long. She’s a fool. XD
that awkward moment when you throw your phone on your bed and it bounces off two walls, hits the fan, flies out the window, bounces off a stranger back inside and kills the cat.
The comments are more entertaining than the article.
it drives me nuts when people overuse awkward. finally i just looked it up and found it didn’t mean what we thought it meant!
Oh, and Raelyn? convoluted, plethora, shrinky-dink, slueth, fabulous (said dramatically w/ emphasis on “fab”, used when talking about oneself), spunky, bubbley…i’ll add more of my faves as i think of them
The way I heard about the awkward turtle gesture is that it derives from locker room humor, e.g. when one’s penis is kind of shrunken from the cold and its head kind of peeks out from under the shrivelled scrotum, thereby resembling a turtle with its head peeking out from its shell. An awkward moment indeed. The awkward turtle gesture for such an awkward moment (and subsequently generalized to cover any other sort of awkward moment) was itself just said to be the way “turtle” was signed in one of the sign-languages for the deaf.
“Over the last decade, high school and college students have occasionally used a playful hand gesture called “awkward turtle” to express a remarkably uncomfortable moment, …”
Good grief. I’m glad I am significantly older than that. And I thought some other things were bizarre. Awkward turtle. Once again I am amazed how often I am reminded that no matter how much I have seen or heard, there is far more I have not.
/snobbery
Why do you always make a distinction between Anglo-Saxon and Germanic dialects? As though Anglo-Saxon isn’t a Germanic language.
Lol I love the word awkward. Well that’s awkward
But…our definition of awkward isn’t as misaligned as it seems.
Meow (\__/)
(>’.'<)
you people are awkward/word (i just came from slash article)
neva new awk was a word (my opinion awk-WORD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
Awkward is Awkward- U-duhhhhhh
If wrong means inappropriate and turn can mean event, or happening; it still works for me.
This post is awkward
Please publish an article on the accursed gender trap. You yourself fell for it here, referring to “a professional tennis player” in singular as “them”. I do a lot of writing and I am constantly hitting the pronoun wall — having to say “him or her” or “his or her” which kills the rhythm of the sentence I’m writing and skews the story off in a direction it was not meant to take. Any advice? Many decades ago, I was taught in elementary school that the socially accepted practice is to use the masculine and the feminine would be assumed. That’s from the dark ages. You wouldn’t dare do that now. So how do we break the curse of requiring overly complicated verbiage in order to accommodate both genders? No one wants to offend him or her, but it is the antithesis of tight writing.
That akward moment when you’re about to hug someone extremely sexy and you hit the mirror
The awkward moment when you find out the other definition of awkward