How to Use shirk in a Sentence

shirk

verb
  • He never shirked from doing his duty.
  • He's too conscientious to shirk his duty.
  • They did their duty without shirking or complaining.
  • When the spring thaw comes, don’t shirk the sunshine in favor of your new chess habit.
    — Janelle Randazza, USA TODAY, 2 Dec. 2020
  • While some guests may have shirked the dress code, the evening’s entertainment took the theme in earnest.
    — Vogue, 21 May 2019
  • Pike can’t shirk his promise to train cadets at the Academy.
    — Keith Phipps, Vulture, 11 Sep. 2025
  • Today the site is a museum and rum distillery that doesn’t shirk from its past.
    — Patrick Scott, New York Times, 16 Jan. 2025
  • The move could create an opening to shirk support from the mayor's plan.
    — Eleanor McCrary, The Courier-Journal, 12 Dec. 2024
  • Netflix The Boyfriend, on the other hand, shirks these norms.
    — Michael Cuby, Them, 19 July 2024
  • In the meantime, each of the three companies is shirking blame.
    — Beth Mole, ArsTechnica, 5 June 2026
  • At the same time, Ardern does not plan to entirely shirk her duties while on leave.
    — Natasha Bach, Fortune, 21 June 2018
  • To do less or to dither rather than decide is to shirk our duty and betray the public’s trust.
    — Gov. Butch Otter, idahostatesman, 8 Jan. 2018
  • Sofia isn’t afraid of work and is always taking on assignments that others would shirk at.
    — Heide Janssen, Orange County Register, 17 Mar. 2024
  • But perhaps these demure little creatures have shirked the spotlight for far too long.
    — Katherine J. Wu, Smithsonian Magazine, 30 Apr. 2020
  • But with the latter, all claims to hard shirking prove disingenuous.
    — Tony Fletcher, WSJ, 1 Sep. 2017
  • Shuggie is an extreme version of how most of us have to shirk off our parents to become ourselves.
    — Los Angeles Times, 7 Apr. 2021
  • None of this is to say that universities should shirk from making tough decisions.
    — Dhruvak Mirani, Baltimore Sun, 1 July 2024
  • Rudnev shirked money, power, and influence, of any kind.
    — William Jones, USA Today, 20 Feb. 2026
  • Go beyond your two weeks of vacation; shatter the system; shirk the Man; do a new, freer kind of work!
    — Nathan Heller, The New Yorker, 12 Sep. 2019
  • The defendants have all tried to shirk liability from the event.
    — Ethan Millman, Rolling Stone, 10 May 2022
  • To ignore that—and to shirk all forms of compromise—will make this issue more partisan than ever.
    — Caroline Kitchener, The Atlantic, 22 Sep. 2017
  • The past could never quite be shirked, and the future that would cauterize the insults of that past could never get quite close enough.
    — Will Blythe, Esquire, 1 Apr. 2010
  • And the Moon slips away, unseen, three millimeters monthly and so on etcetera till its visage will shirk this scene.
    — Christopher Cokinos, Scientific American, 1 Mar. 2020
  • Nick, desperate to return to the present, shirks the doting parents and brother who long to comfort him.
    — Sam Bodrojan, IndieWire, 17 June 2026
  • Nick, desperate to return to the present, shirks the doting parents and brother who long to comfort him.
    — Sam Bodrojan, IndieWire, 7 Sep. 2025
  • Over years, Congress made the choice to shirk its duty and cede power to the executive branch.
    — Haley Victory Smith, Washington Examiner, 9 Sep. 2020
  • Naturally, David tries to shirk the duty.
    — Erin Jensen, USA Today, 27 June 2026
  • Smith didn’t shirk defensive duties, either.
    — Richard Sutcliffe, New York Times, 5 Jan. 2026
  • This process shouldn’t be a cause for celebration or social-media snark, but a somber obligation that can’t be shirked.
    — Gilbert Garcia, ExpressNews.com, 9 Nov. 2019
  • Moments before, during the introductions, the thing to do had been to shirk his eye contact and look at the things in the room that weren’t him.
    — Susan Choi, The New Yorker, 31 Aug. 2020

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'shirk.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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