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lark

UK/lɑːk/US/lɑɹk/
nounB2+Common in everyday speech and writing · #6,632 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: larks

A lark is a brown field bird that sings while hovering high up. A skylark, larks over the field, the lark ascending.

It sings on the wing rather than from a perch, climbing and hovering for minutes at a time, and that song has fed English poetry for centuries. Up with the lark means very early. A lark is also a bit of harmless fun, which is a separate word.

T.Voekler · CC BY-SA 3.0

Definitions of lark

  1. 1nounlarkA brown field bird that sings while hovering.B2+

    “We heard a lark singing high above the fields.”

lark is a bird.

Where it comes from

Old English lawerce names the bird, from a Germanic root of unknown further origin.

  1. Proto-Germanic

    *laiwazikǭ

  2. Proto-West Germanic

    *laiwaʀikā

  3. Old English

    lāwerce

  4. Middle English

    larke

  5. English, today

    lark

From Middle English larke, laverke, from Old English lāwerce, lǣwerce, lāuricæ, from Proto-West Germanic laiwaʀikā, from Proto-Germanic laiwazikǭ (compare dialectal West Frisian larts, Dutch leeuwerik, German Lerche), from laiwaz (borrowed into Finnish leivo, Estonian lõo), of unknown ultimate origin with no definitive cognates outside of Germanic.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Birds

Practise this word

lark in the wild

  • Only a single species, the horned lark, occurs in North America, and only Horsfield's bush lark occurs in Australia.

    Lark

  • The Eurasian skylark (Alauda arvensis), commonly referred to in Europe as the lark, is a passerine bird in the lark family, Alaudidae.

    Eurasian skylark

  • The horned lark or shore lark (Eremophila alpestris) is a species of lark in the family Alaudidae found across the northern hemisphere.

    Horned lark

  • The crested lark (Galerida cristata) is a species of lark widespread across Eurasia and northern Africa.

    Crested lark

  • The desert lark (Ammomanes deserti) breeds in deserts and semi-deserts from Morocco to western India.

    Desert lark

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

  • up with the lark