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Webster 1913 Edition

Noun.

[AS.

stric

, from

steór

a steer. See

a young ox.]

A young bullock or heifer.

[Prov. Eng. & Scot.]

Sir W. Scott.

Noun.

A young ox or heifer. [Local.]

stirk ‎(plural stirks)

(Britain, Scotland, dialect, dated) A yearling cow; a young bullock or heifer.
- 1932, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Sunset Song, Polygon 2006 (A Scots Quair), p. 20:
  he could stop a running stirk by the horns, so strong he was in the wrist-bones.
- Sir Walter Scott
  But beware of MacPhadraick, my son; for when he called himself the friend of your father, he better loved the most worthless stirk in his herd, than he did the life-blood of MacTavish Mhor.

From Middle English stirk, sterke, styrke, from Old English stīrc, stȳrc, stȳric, stīorc ‎(“calf, a stirk, a young bullock or a heifer”), from Proto-Germanic *stiurikaz ‎(“bullock”), diminutive of Proto-Germanic *steuraz ‎(“steer”), equivalent to steer +‎ -ock. Cognate with Middle Low German sterke ‎(“stirk”), Middle Dutch stierick ‎(“stirk”), German Sterk, Stärke, Stark ‎(“stirk”). More at steer.