colloq. (orig. slang.) [Belongs to LARK sb.2; the sb. and vb. appear first in 1811–3. The origin is somewhat uncertain.

1

  Possibly it may represent the northern LAKE v., as heard by sporting men from Yorkshire jockeys or grooms; the sound (lēək, lǣək), which is written lairk in Robinson’s Whitby Glossary and in dialect books, would to a southern hearer more naturally suggest ‘lark’ than ‘lake’ as its equivalent in educated pronunciation. On the other hand, it is quite as likely that the word may have originated in some allusion to LARK sb.1; cf. the similar use of skylark vb. (which, however, is app. not recorded till much later).]

2

  1.  intr. To play tricks, frolic; to ride in a frolicsome manner; to ride across country. Also with about.

3

1813.  Col. Hawker, Diary (1893), I. 68. Having larked all the way down the road.

4

1835.  Nimrod’s Hunting Tour, 227. There is another way of making use of horse-flesh … and that is,… what in the language of the day is called ‘larking.’ One of the party holds up his hat which is a signal for the start; and, putting their horses’ heads in a direction for Melton, away they go, and stop at nothing till they get there.

5

1842.  Barham, Ingol. Leg., Ser. II. St. Cuthbert. Don’t ‘lark’ with the watch, or annoy the police!

6

1846–57.  De Quincey, Keats, Wks. VI. 276, note. It is a ticklish thing to lark with honest men’s names.

7

1848.  Thackeray, Van. Fair, lxv. 496. Jumping the widest brooks, and larking over the newest gates in the country.

8

1857.  Hughes, Tom Brown, I. v. Larking about at leap-frog to keep themselves warm.

9

1861.  Whyte-Melville, Mkt. Harb., 56. If we are to lark home … I may as well ride a nag I can trust.

10

1871.  ‘M. Legrand,’ Cambr. Freshm., 261. These … expert riders … set off to ‘lark’ it home.

11

1889.  H. O’Reilly, 50 Years on Trail, 3–4. I was sent to school, but I was always larking about and playing pranks on my school-fellows, instead of attending to my books and trying to learn anything.

12

  2.  trans. To make fun of, tease sportively (a person); to ride (a horse) across country.

13

1848.  Thackeray, Van. Fair, lxvi. 603. A staid English maid … whom Georgy used to ‘lark’ dreadfully, with accounts of German robbers and ghosts.

14

1861.  Whyte-Melville, Mkt. Harb., 21. ‘May I lark him?’ said he, pulling up after a short canter to and fro on the turf by the wayside.

15

  3.  To clear (a fence) with a flying leap.

16

1834.  Ainsworth, Rookwood, IV. vii. Bess was neither strained by her gliding passage down the slippery hill side, nor shaken by larking the fence in the meadow.

17