Trisk

Part of speech: verb, noun

Definitions

1. To move about in a lively, playful way, skipping or frisking with quick light steps
2. Describing the act of dancing or bounding about merrily, as a light-footed animal or child might
3. Capering about in high spirits, moving briskly and gaily without any serious purpose

Etymology: "Trisk" is a rare English word, first recorded in the 1500s, and its history is short and unusually murky. The Oxford English Dictionary connects it to the earlier verb "trusk" (or "trousk"), which appears in English writing around the same period and is itself of uncertain origin. The earlier form of the word is best described as having drifted between senses of "to dance" and "to move briskly," and the two forms seem to have influenced each other in the sixteenth century. Scholars have not agreed on a firm source outside English. Attempts to link the word to French or Scandinavian roots have not been established with confidence, so the safest statement is that its immediate ancestry is unknown. What can be said is that its sound and sense fit a family of lively, imitative verbs in English that suggest quick, springing motion.