lark

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A small brown bird known for its tuneful singing, often heard high in the sky.

   A lark rose singing into the morning sky.

2. 2
   noun

   Something done for fun or as a joke.

   We climbed the hill in the rain just for a lark.

3. 3
   verb

   To play or behave in a silly, light-hearted way.

   The children were larking about in the garden.

Simplified etymology

Lark as the bird name developed from Old English laferce, preserved in Scottish and northern English as laverock, and was shortened during the Middle Ages. Lark meaning playful activity may instead be a shortening of skylark or derive from dialect lake, “to play,” which has a Scandinavian source.

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”).

Topics

External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary