lark

name

1. Alternative form of Larak (“island off the coast of Iran”).

noun

Etymology: 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”).

1. A frolic or romp, some fun.

   “‘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?’”

   ““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.””

2. A prank.

   “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!”

verb

Etymology: 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”).

1. To sport, engage in harmless pranking.

   “[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 […]”

   “[…] 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 […]”

2. To frolic, engage in carefree adventure.