carking

1. gerundparticiplepresentpresent participle and gerund of cark

comparative more carking · superlative most carking

1. archaicWearying, distressing (of care, or similar words).

   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.

   1751, [Tobias] Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), London: Harrison and Co., […], →OCLC

   1 more example

   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.

   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

plural carkings

1. archaicWearying; distress.

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

   1705, Anthony Horneck, The Crucified Jesus, page 419