berk
/bəːk
/(also burk or burke)
noun British informal
A stupid person.People who glamourise heavy drinking are berks....
- Full-scale, ceiling-splattering explosions are rare, but then berks like my former colleague John are pretty rare as well.
- Even without his help there are clearly enough berks in that house to ensure failure at every turn.
Origin
1930s: abbreviation of Berkeley or Berkshire Hunt, rhyming slang for 'cunt'.
This British slang term for a stupid person is generally regarded as fairly acceptable in polite society, but it has a rude origin. It is an abbreviation of Berkeley or Berkshire Hunt, rhyming slang for what has increasingly been called, since the 1970s the C word. The first written example dates from the late 1920s.