carking

carking

1. present participle and gerund of cark

carking (comparative more carking, superlative most carking)

1. (archaic) Wearying, distressing (of care, or similar words).
   • 1751, [Tobias] Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to IV), London: Harrison and Co., […], →OCLC:

     After mutual protestations of friendship and regard, he […] took his leave in a strange perplexity of mind, occasioned by the images of love, intruding upon the remonstrances of carking care.

   • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 35, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 175:

     For nowadays, the whale-fishery furnishes an asylum for many romantic, melancholy, and absent-minded young men, disgusted with the carking cares of earth, and seeking sentiment in tar and blubber.

• carkingly

carking (plural carkings)

1. (archaic) Wearying; distress.
   • 1705, Anthony Horneck, The Crucified Jesus, page 419:

     What anxious cares and carkings have gnaw'd thy Breast, when Ravens and dumb Creatures have committed themselves to God's Wisdom and Goodness?

• arcking, craking, racking