# lark
## English
### Alternative forms

* laverock, lavrock

### Pronunciation

* (Received Pronunciation) enPR: läk, IPA: /lɑːk/
* Audio (Southern England):(file)
* (General American) enPR: lärk, IPA: /lɑɹk/
* Audio (General American):(file)
* Homophones: lakh (Received Pronunciation); lock (non-rhotic, father-bother merger)
* Rhymes: -ɑː(ɹ)k

### Etymology 1

From Middle English larke, laverke, from Old English lāwerce, lǣwerce, lāuricæ, from Proto-West Germanic *laiwarikā, from Proto-Germanic *laiwarikǭ, *laiwazikǭ (compare dialectal West Frisian larts, Dutch leeuwerik, German Lerche), from *laiwaz (borrowed into Finnish leivo, Estonian lõo), of unknown ultimate origin with no definitive cognates outside of Germanic.

#### Noun

lark (plural larks)
* Any of various small, singing passerine birds of the family Alaudidae.
* Any of various similar-appearing birds, but usually ground-living, such as the meadowlark and titlark.
* (by extension) One who wakes early; one who is up with the larks.
    Synonyms: early bird, early riser
    Antonym: owl
* A jolly or peppy person.
** 1990, Wayne Jancik, The Billboard Book of One-Hit Wonders, →ISBN, page 238:Charles Randolph Grean is married to pop lark and multi-hit artist Betty Johnson.

##### Hyponyms

* (species in Alaudidae): woodlark, skylark, magpie-lark, horned lark, sea lark, crested lark, shorelark

##### Derived terms

* Beesley's lark
* bushlark (Mirafra spp.)
* calandra lark (Melanocorypha spp.)
* crested lark (Galerida cristata)
* day lark
* gay as a lark
* greater short-toed lark
* happy as a lark
* hoopoe-lark
* horned lark (Eremophila alpestris)
* lark bunting (Calamospiza melanocorys)
* lark buttonquail
* larker
* lark-plover
* lark's-heel (Tropaeolum majus)
* lark sparrow (Chondestes grammacus)
* larkspur (Consolida spp., Delphinium spp.)
* lark's tongue
* magpie-lark (Grallina cyanoleuca)
* meadowlark
* mudlark
* pink-billed lark
* rise with the lark
* rising lark
* sand lark (Alaudala rayta)
* scribble lark
* sea lark (Anthus petrosus et al.)
* shore lark
* shorelark (Eremophila spp.)
* skylark (Alauda arvensis)
* sparrow-lark
* titlark (Anthus pratensis)
* torrent-lark
* up with the lark
* woodlark (Lullula arborea)
* writing lark

##### Translations
#### Verb

lark (third-person singular simple present larks, present participle larking, simple past and past participle larked)
* To catch larks (type of bird).
    to go larking

#### References

* lark on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
* Category:Alaudidae on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons
* Alaudidae on Wikispecies.Wikispecies

### Etymology 2

Uncertain, either
* from a northern English dialectal term lake / laik (“to play”) (around 1300, from Old Norse leika (“to play (as opposed to work)”)), with an intrusive -r- as is common in southern British dialects; or
* a shortening of skylark (1809), sailors' slang, "play roughly in the rigging of a ship", because the common European larks were proverbial for high-flying; Dutch has a similar idea in speelvogel (“playbird, a person of markedly playful nature”).

#### Noun

lark (plural larks)
* A frolic or romp, some fun.
** 1838, Boz [pseudonym; Charles Dickens], chapter 43, in Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy’s Progress. […], volume (please specify |volume=I, II, or III), London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC:‘Ha! ha!’ laughed Master Bates, ‘what a lark that would be, wouldn’t it, Fagin? I say, how the Artful would bother ’em wouldn’t he?’
** 1878, Henry James, An International Episode‎:“Oh, dear, no,” said the young Englishman; “my cousin was coming over on some business, so I just came across, at an hour’s notice, for the lark.”
** 2011 August 4, Stephen Holden, “Stoned Archive: Wild Ride Of the Merry Pranksters”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:Thanks partly to Tom Wolfe’s raised-eyebrow account, “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test,” that bohemian lark has been retrospectively hailed as the flash point of the emerging hippie counterculture.
** 2018 November, Alexis C. Madrigal, “The Dangers of YouTube for Young Children”, in The Atlantic‎:What began as a lark has grown into something very, very big, inflating the company’s ambitions.
* A prank.
** 1912 (date written), [George] Bernard Shaw, “Pygmalion”, in Androcles and the Lion, Overruled, Pygmalion, London: Constable and Company, published 1916, →OCLC, Act V, page 173:doolittle. […] [T]hanks to your silly joking, he leaves me a share in his Pre-digested Cheese Trust worth three thousand a year on condition that I lecture for his Wannafeller Moral Reform World League as often as they ask me up to six times a year. / higgins. The devil he does! Whew! [Brightening suddenly] What a lark!

##### Synonyms

* whim, especially in phrase on a whim, see also Thesaurus:whim

##### Derived terms

* blow this for a lark
* fuck this for a lark
* on a lark
* screw this for a lark
* sod this for a lark

##### Related terms

* skylark (in verb sense "play")

##### Translations
#### Verb

lark (third-person singular simple present larks, present participle larking, simple past and past participle larked)
* To sport, engage in harmless pranking.
** 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 68, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC:[T]hey laugh at us old boys,” thought old Pendennis. And he was not far wrong; the times and manners which he admired were pretty nearly gone—the gay young men “larked” him irreverently […]
** 1855, Elizabeth Gaskell, chapter 35, in North and South‎:[…] the porter at the rail-road had seen a scuffle; or when he found it was likely to bring him in as a witness, then it might not have been a scuffle, only a little larking […]
* To frolic, engage in carefree adventure.

##### Derived terms

* lark about
* lark around

##### Translations

    The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

#### References

* Douglas Harper (2001–2025) “lark”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
* Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, Springfield, Massachusetts, G.&C. Merriam Co., 1967

### Anagrams

* Klar, klar, kral, Karl, Kral

## Woiwurrung
### Noun

lark
* heavens

### See also

* laak (“cloud”)

### References

* ↑ https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/The_aborigines_of_Victoria_-_with_notes_relating_to_the_habits_of_the_natives_of_other_parts_of_Australia_and_Tasmania_%28IA_b24885228_0002%29.pdf