Source : Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

Awk \Awk\, adv.
   Perversely; in the wrong way. --L'Estrange.

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.]
   1. Odd; out of order; perverse. [Obs.]

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

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

Source : Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing

awk
     
        1.  (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.  An expression which is awkward to manipulate
        through normal {regexp} facilities, for example, one
        containing a {newline}.
     
        [{Jargon File}]
     
        (1995-10-06)