lark

Noun

lark (plural larks)

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. (by extension) One who wakes early; one who is up with the larks.

   Synonyms: early bird, early riser

   Antonym: owl

4. A jolly or peppy person.
   • 1990, Wayne Jancik, The Billboard Book of One-Hit Wonders, →ISBN, page 238:

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

Verb

lark (third-person singular simple present larks, present participle larking, simple past and past participle larked)

1. To catch larks (type of bird).

   to go larking

References

• lark on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Category:Alaudidae on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons
• Alaudidae on Wikispecies.Wikispecies

Noun

lark (plural larks)

1. A frolic or romp, some fun.
   • 1838, Boz [pseudonym; Charles Dickens], chapter 43, in Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy’s Progress. […], volume (please specify |volume=I, II, or III), London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC:

     ‘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?’

   • 1878, Henry James, An International Episode‎:

     “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.”

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

     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.

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

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

2. A prank.
   • 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:

     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!

Verb

lark (third-person singular simple present larks, present participle larking, simple past and past participle larked)

1. To sport, engage in harmless pranking.
   • 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:

     [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 […]

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

     […] 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 […]

2. To frolic, engage in carefree adventure.

References

• Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “lark”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
• Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, Springfield, Massachusetts, G.&C. Merriam Co., 1967