bark

• barke (obsolete)

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /bɑːk/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /bɑɹk/

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɑː(ɹ)k
• Homophone: barque

From Middle English barken, berken, borken, from Old English beorcan (“to bark”), from the Proto-West Germanic *berkan (“to bark”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰerg- (“to make a noise, growl, bark”), from *bʰer- (“to drone, hum, buzz”). Cognate with Icelandic berkja (“to bark, bluster”), Icelandic barki (“throat, windpipe”), dialectal Lithuanian burgė́ti (“to growl, grumble, grouch, quarrel”), Serbo-Croatian brbljati (“to murmur”). For the noun, compare Old English beorc, bearce (“barking”).

recorded barks (noun sense 1) of a dog

bark (third-person singular simple present barks, present participle barking, simple past and past participle barked)

1. (intransitive) To make a short, loud, explosive noise with the vocal organs (said of animals, especially dogs).

   Synonyms: give tongue, (rare) latrate

   The neighbour's dog is always barking.

   The seal barked as the zookeeper threw fish into its enclosure.

2. (intransitive) To make a clamor; to make importunate outcries.
   • 1530, Tyndale, A Pathway into the Holy Scripture:

     And therefore they bark, and say the scripture maketh heretics.

   • 1655, Thomas Fuller, The Church-history of Britain; […], London: […] Iohn Williams […], →OCLC:

     Where there is the barking of the belly, there no other commands will be heard, much less obeyed.

3. (transitive) To speak sharply.

   The sergeant barked an order.

   • 1932, Delos W. Lovelace, King Kong, published 1965, page 3:

     Plainly he was prepared to bark out an interminable succession of charges against the Wanderer.

   • 2001, Salman Rushdie, Fury: A Novel, London: Jonathan Cape, →ISBN, page 5:

     Sudden anger rose in him. “What I’m looking for,” he barked, “is to be left in peace.” His voice trembled with a rage far bigger than her intrusion merited, the rage which shocked him whenever it coursed through his nervous system, like a flood.

   • 2011 January 5, Mark Ashenden, “Wolverhampton 1 - 0 Chelsea”, in BBC‎:

     While McCarthy prowled the touchline barking orders, his opposite number watched on motionless and expressionless and, with 25 minutes to go, decided to throw on Nicolas Anelka for Kalou.

bark (plural barks)

1. The short, loud, explosive sound uttered by a dog, a fox, and some other animals.
2. (figuratively) An abrupt loud vocal utterance.
   • c. 1921, The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, volume 11:

     Fox’s clumsy figure, negligently dressed in blue and buff, seemed unprepossessing; only his shaggy eyebrows added to the expression of his face; his voice would rise to a bark in excitement.

   • 1949 January and February, F. G. Roe, “I Saw Three Englands–1”, in Railway Magazine, page 12:

     Long before Shap platform showed up around a corner and the two arms on the gradient post drooped in both directions at once, Duchess of Buccleuch's amiable throbbing purr at the stack [funnel, chimney] had become a fierce freight-engine bark, as she resolutely dragged at her enormous load.

From Middle English bark, from Old English barc (“bark”), from Old Norse bǫrkr (“tree bark”), from Proto-Germanic *barkuz, probably related to *birkijǭ (“birch”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰergo- (compare Latin frāxinus (“ash”), Lithuanian béržas (“birch”)), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰereg- (“to gleam; white”) (compare English bright); akin to Danish bark, Icelandic börkur, Low German borke and Albanian berk (“bast”).

bark (countable and uncountable, plural barks)

1. (countable, uncountable) The exterior covering of the trunk and branches of a tree.
   • 1879, Friedrich August Flückiger et al., Pharmacographia...‎, page 346:

     The hardships of bark-collecting in the primeval forests of South America are of the severest kind, and undergone only by the half-civilized Indians and people of mixed race, in the pay of speculators or companies located in the towns. Those who are engaged in the business, especially the collectors themselves, are called Cascarilleros or Cascadores, from the Spanish word Cascara, bark.

   • 2012, John Branch, “Snow Fall : The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek”, in New York Time‎:

     Moving about 70 miles per hour, it crashed through the sturdy old-growth trees, snapping their limbs and shredding bark from their trunks.

2. (medicine) Peruvian bark or Jesuit's bark, the bark of the cinchona from which quinine is produced.
3. Hard candy made in flat sheets, for instance out of chocolate, peanut butter, toffee or peppermint.
4. The crust formed on barbecued meat that has had a rub applied to it.
   • 2009, Julie Reinhardt, She-Smoke: A Backyard Barbecue Book, page 151:

     This softens the meat further, but at some loss of crunch to the bark.

5. The envelopment or outer covering of anything.

Usually uncountable; bark may be countable when referring to the barks of different types of tree.

• (exterior covering of a tree): rind

bark (third-person singular simple present barks, present participle barking, simple past and past participle barked)

1. To strip the bark from; to peel.
   • 1922, A. M. Chisholm, A Thousand a Plate:

     Along the river freshly felled and barked trees told of the activity of beaver, and in slow current and in eddies the tops of their winter's food supply lay like submerged brush fences projecting above the surface.

2. To abrade or rub off any outer covering from.

   to bark one’s heel

   • 2019 May 8, Barney Ronay, “Liverpool’s waves of red fury and recklessness end in joyous bedlam”, in The Guardian‎:

     Barcelona had been harried and hurried and stretched thin by the midway point in the second half. Tackles flew in. Toes were crushed, shins barked, ankles hacked.

3. To girdle.
4. To cover or inclose with bark, or as with bark.

   bark the roof of a hut

• barking iron
• ringbark

From Middle English barke (“boat”), from Middle French barque, from Late Latin barca, a regular syncope of Vulgar Latin *barica, from Classical Latin bāris, from Ancient Greek βᾶρις (bâris, “Egyptian boat”), from Coptic ⲃⲁⲁⲣⲉ (baare, “small boat”), from Demotic br, from Egyptian bꜣjr

• barque

bark (plural barks)

1. (obsolete) A small sailing vessel, e.g. a pinnace or a fishing smack; a rowing boat or barge.
2. (poetic) A sailing vessel or boat of any kind.
   • c. 1609, William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116:

     It is the star to every wandering bark

   • 1817 December, Percy Bysshe Shelley, “The Revolt of Islam. […]”, in [Mary] Shelley, editor, The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. […], volume I, London: Edward Moxon […], published 1839, →OCLC, page 272:

     We know not where we go, or what sweet dream
     May pilot us through caverns strange and fair
     Of far and pathless passion, while the stream
     Of life our bark doth on its whirlpools bear,
     Spreading swift wings as sails to the dim air; […]

   • a. 1887 (date written), Emily Dickinson, “[Book I.—Life] Whether my bark went down at sea”, in Mabel Loomis Todd and T[homas] W[entworth] Higginson, editors, Poems, First Series, Boston, Mass.: Roberts Brothers, published 1890, →OCLC, page 38:

     Whether my bark went down at sea, / Whether she met with gales, […]

3. (nautical) A vessel, typically with three (or more) masts, with the foremasts (or fore- and mainmasts) square-rigged, and mizzenmast schooner-rigged.
   • 1997, Mark Kurlansky, Cod, page 114:

     Europeans would cross the ocean in large barks built for deck space and large holds.

• → Welsh: barc

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

bark (plural barks)

1. (slang, obsolete) An Irish person.

• John Camden Hotten (1873) The Slang Dictionary
• 1890, John Stephen Farmer, William Ernest Henley, Slang and Its Analogues Past and Present: A to Byz (page 124)

• brak, kbar, krab

From Proto-Albanian *báruka, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰor-uko-, from *bʰer- (“to carry”). Compare Messapic βάρυκα (báruka). A doublet of bie, barrë, and barrë.

bark m (plural barqe, definite barku, definite plural barqet)

1. (anatomy) belly

• zbërkoj
• lëbarke

From Old Norse bǫrkr.

• IPA^(key): /bark/, [b̥ɑːɡ̊]

bark c (singular definite barken, not used in plural form)

1. bark (covering of the trunk of a tree)

From Old Norse barki

• IPA^(key): /bark/, [b̥ɑːɡ̊]

bark c (singular definite barken, plural indefinite barker)

1. bark (large sailing boat)

• “bark” in Den Danske Ordbog
• “bark,2” in Den Danske Ordbog

• IPA^(key): /bɑrk/

• audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: bark
• Rhymes: -ɑrk

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

bark m (plural barken, diminutive barkje n)

1. the bark of certain trees, used for its tannin

From Middle Dutch barke, from Old French barque.

bark f (plural barken, diminutive barkje n)

1. barge, a large type of rowing or sailing boat

• → Sranan Tongo: barki

• brak, krab

From Danish bark, from Middle French barque, from Late Latin barca, from Vulgar Latin barica, from Ancient Greek βάρις (báris, “Egyptian boat”), from Coptic ⲃⲁⲁⲣⲉ (baare, “small boat”), from Egyptian bꜣjr (“transport ship, type of fish”),

bark f (genitive singular barkar, plural barkir)

1. (nautical) bark: A three-masted vessel, having her foremast and mainmast square-rigged, and her mizzenmast schooner-rigged.

• barkskip

• barke

From Old English bark, from Old Norse bǫrkr, from Proto-Germanic *barkuz.

• IPA^(key): /bark/

bark (plural barkes)

1. bark (a tree's covering, often used in leatherworking or as a pharmaceutical).
2. The exterior layer of a nut or other fruit.
3. (rare, Late Middle English, figurative) A shallow look at something.

• barker
• barkyn

• English: bark
• Scots: bark

• “bark, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-08-12.

From Old Norse bǫrkr.

bark m (definite singular barken, uncountable)

1. bark (outer layer of trunks and branches of trees and bushes)

• hjernebark

• bork (Nynorsk)

From Late Latin barca, via French barque.

bark m (definite singular barken, indefinite plural barker, definite plural barkene)

1. (nautical) a barque or bark (type of sailing ship)

• “bark” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

From Late Latin barca, via French barque.

bark m (definite singular barken, indefinite plural barkar, definite plural barkane)

1. (nautical) a barque or bark (type of sailing ship)

• “bark” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

• IPA^(key): /bark/

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ark
• Syllabification: bark

Inherited from Old Polish bark, from Proto-Slavic *bъrkъ.

bark m inan

1. shoulder (the part of the body between the base of the neck and forearm socket)

   Synonym: ramię

2. (architecture, historical) the side extension of a fort or fortification
3. (in the plural) upper back (area including the shoulder blades from one shoulder to the other)

Borrowed from English barque, from Latin barca. Doublet of barka.

bark m inan

1. (nautical) barque (sailing vessel)

• bark in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• bark in Polish dictionaries at PWN
• Słownik etymologiczny języka polskiego/bark on the Polish Wikisource.Wikisource ^pl

From Old Norse bǫrkr, from Proto-Germanic *barkuz.

bark c (uncountable)

1. bark (covering of the trunk of a tree)
2. barque (type of ship)

   Synonym: barkskepp

• barkbröd

• barka

• bark in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• bark in Svenska Akademiens ordböcker
• bark in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)

From Proto-Turkic *b(i)ark (“home”).

bark (definite accusative barkı, plural barklar)

1. (idiomatic) home

• ev
• hane

• barklı
• barksız

• evsiz barksız
• evli barklı

• Nişanyan, Sevan (2002–) “bark”, in Nişanyan Sözlük