Etymology 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.
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
Broadly One who wakes early; one who is up with the larks.
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:
Etymology 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.
1
To catch larks (a type of bird).
to go larking
lark
noun
Etymology Uncertain, either * from a northern English dialectal term lake /laik (“to play”) (around 1300, from Old Norse leika (“to play (as opposed to work)”)), with an intrusive -r- as is common in southern British dialects; or * a shortening of skylark (1809), sailors' slang, "play roughly in the rigging of a ship", because the common European larks were proverbial for high-flying; Dutch has a similar idea in speelvogel (“playbird, a person of markedly playful nature”).
1
A frolic or romp, some fun.
‘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:
2 more examples
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:
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:
2
A prank.
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:
Etymology Uncertain, either * from a northern English dialectal term lake /laik (“to play”) (around 1300, from Old Norse leika (“to play (as opposed to work)”)), with an intrusive -r- as is common in southern British dialects; or * a shortening of skylark (1809), sailors' slang, "play roughly in the rigging of a ship", because the common European larks were proverbial for high-flying; Dutch has a similar idea in speelvogel (“playbird, a person of markedly playful nature”).
1
To sport, engage in harmless pranking.
[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:
[…] 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: