welk

Welk is a surname of Germanic origin. The most widely known bearer is Lawrence Welk (1903–1992), an American musician, bandleader, and television personality. Welk led Lawrence Welk and His Champagne Music, a dance orchestra whose melodic, accessible style helped shape mid-20th-century popular music. He gained broad public recognition as the host of The Lawrence Welk Show, a long-running television program that featured music, comedy, and variety performances. The show contributed to the popularization of a light, easy-listening sound often described as champagne music.

In Dutch, welk is a demonstrative determiner and pronoun meaning "which." It is used in questions (for example, "Welk boek lees je?") and in relative clauses where English uses "which" or "that." The form varies by gender and number: "welk" for masculine or neuter singular, "welke" for feminine singular or plural.

As a surname, Welk is relatively uncommon outside of particular families, and most coverage in English-language sources concerns Lawrence Welk and his works. The term can also appear in unrelated contexts where it is a proper noun or a fragment of a longer word.