Awk

from The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48

Awk \Awk\ ([add]k), a. [OE. auk, awk (properly) turned away;
   (hence) contrary, wrong, from Icel. ["o]figr, ["o]fugr,
   afigr, turning the wrong way, fr. af off, away; cf. OHG.
   abuh, Skr. ap[=a]c turned away, fr. apa off, away + a root
   ak, a[u^]k, to bend, from which come also E. angle, anchor.]
   [1913 Webster]
   1. Odd; out of order; perverse. [Obs.]
      [1913 Webster]

   2. Wrong, or not commonly used; clumsy; sinister; as, the awk
      end of a rod (the but end). [Obs.] --Golding.
      [1913 Webster]

   3. Clumsy in performance or manners; unhandy; not dexterous;
      awkward. [Obs. or Prov. Eng.]
      [1913 Webster]

from The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48

Awk \Awk\, adv.
   Perversely; in the wrong way. --L'Estrange.
   [1913 Webster]

from Jargon File (4.4.4, 14 Aug 2003)

awk
 /awk/

   1. n. [Unix techspeak] An interpreted language for massaging text data
   developed by Alfred Aho, Peter Weinberger, and Brian Kernighan (the
   name derives from their initials). It is characterized by C-like
   syntax, a declaration-free approach to variable typing and
   declarations, associative arrays, and field-oriented text processing.
   See also {Perl}.

   2. n. Editing term for an expression awkward to manipulate through
   normal {regexp} facilities (for example, one containing a {newline}).

   3. vt. To process data using awk(1).

from The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008)

awk

   1. <tool, language> (Named from the authors' initials) An
   interpreted language included with many versions of {Unix} for
   massaging text data, developed by Alfred Aho, Peter Weinberger,
   and Brian Kernighan in 1978.  It is characterised by {C}-like
   syntax, declaration-free variables, {associative arrays}, and
   field-oriented text processing.

   There is a {GNU} version called {gawk} and other varients
   including {bawk}, {mawk}, {nawk}, {tawk}.  {Perl} was inspired
   in part by awk but is much more powerful.

   {Unix manual page}: awk(1).

   netlib WWW
   (http://plan9.att.com/netlib/research/index.html).  netlib
   FTP (ftp://netlib.att.com/netlib/research/).

   ["The AWK Programming Language" A. Aho, B. Kernighan,
   P. Weinberger, A-W 1988].

   2. <jargon> An expression which is awkward to manipulate
   through normal {regexp} facilities, for example, one
   containing a {newline}.

   [{Jargon File}]

   (1995-10-06)