Etymology

skylark

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Today it means: A small brown passerine bird, Alauda arvensis, that sings as it flies high into the air. Full definition →

Old Norse leika
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The story

  1. Old Norse · derived fromleika“to play (as opposed to work)”
  2. English todayskylark

From sky + lark. Verb sense 1809, originally nautical, possibly influenced by northern English dialectal term lake/laik (“to play”) (from Old Norse leika (“to play (as opposed to work)”)); see lark for details.

Words from the same roots

Old Norseleika all →

larklakin

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.