yerk

verb

1. (archaic, transitive)To stab (someone or something).

   “To doe no contriu'd mur[t]her; I lacke iniquity / Sometimes to do me ſeruice: nine or ten times, / I had thought to haue ierk'd him here, / Vnder the ribbes.”

2. To throw or thrust with a sudden, smart movement; to kick or strike suddenly; to jerk.

   “Their wounded steeds […] / Yerk out their armed heels at their dead masters.”

   “Vp on a ſuddaine they together ſtart, / And driue at him as faſt as they could ding, / They flirt, they yerke, they backvvard fluce, and fling / As though the Deuill in their heeles had bin, / That to eſcape the danger he vvas in.”

3. (Scotland, obsolete)To strike or lash with a whip or stick.
4. (Scotland, obsolete)To rouse or excite.
5. To bind or tie with a jerk.

noun

1. (archaic)A sudden or quick thrust or motion; a jerk.

   “Imagine twenty thouſand of them breaking into the midſt of an European Army, confounding the Ranks, overturning the Carriages, battering the Warriors Faces into Mummy, by terrible Yerks from their hinder Hoofs.”