lark

plural larks · alternative laverock · alternative lavrock

1. Any of various small, singing passerine birds of the family Alaudidae.
2. Any of various similar-appearing birds, but usually ground-living, such as the meadowlark and titlark.
3. broadlyOne who wakes early; one who is up with the larks.

   Synonyms: early bird, early riser · Antonyms: owl

4. A jolly or peppy person.

   Charles Randolph Grean is married to pop lark and multi-hit artist Betty Johnson.

   1990, Wayne Jancik, The Billboard Book of One-Hit Wonders, →ISBN, page 238

present singular third person larks · participle present larking · participle past larked · past larked · alternative laverock · alternative lavrock

1. intransitiveTo catch larks (a type of bird).

   to go larking

plural larks · alternative laverock · alternative lavrock

1. A frolic or romp, some fun.

   What began as a lark has grown into something very, very big, inflating the company’s ambitions.

   2018 November, Alexis C. Madrigal, “The Dangers of YouTube for Young Children”, in The Atlantic

   3 more examples

   ‘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?’

   1838, Boz [pseudonym; Charles Dickens], chapter 43, in Oliver Twist; […], volume (please specify |volume=I, II, or III), London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC

   “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.”

   1878, Henry James, An International Episode

   Thanks partly to Tom Wolfe’s raised-eyebrow account, “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test,” that bohemian lark has been retrospectively hailed as the flash point of the emerging hippie counterculture.

   2011 August 4, Stephen Holden, “Stoned Archive: Wild Ride Of the Merry Pranksters”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

2. A prank.

   1 more example

   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!

   1912 (date written), [George] Bernard Shaw, “Pygmalion”, in Androcles and the Lion, Overruled, Pygmalion, London: Constable and Company, published 1916, →OCLC, Act V, page 173

present singular third person larks · participle present larking · participle past larked · past larked · alternative laverock · alternative lavrock

1. To sport, engage in harmless pranking.

   […] 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 […]

   1855, Elizabeth Gaskell, chapter 35, in North and South

   1 more example

   [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 […]

   1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 68, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC

2. To frolic, engage in carefree adventure.

1. A surname transferred from the nickname, from lark as a byname or for a catcher and seller of larks.
2. A surname originating as a patronymic shortened from Larkin, a medieval diminutive of Laurence.
3. A male given name transferred from the surname, of occasional usage.
4. A female given name from English from the lark bird.

   1 more example

   Mama had chosen the name Lark. Lark Browning Erhardt. Papa had wanted to call me Beverly Mary; Mary after the Blessed Virgin. Mama said she wouldn't hang a name like Beverly Mary on a pet skunk. Where she got the idea for Lark, I don't know, though one time when I asked, she said that larks flew high and had a happy song.

   1989, Faith Sullivan, The Cape Ann, Penguin, published 1989, →ISBN, page 2

5. A river in England, on the border between Suffolk and Cambridgeshire.

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