[f. BARK sb.1; cf. Sw. barka, Da. berke, to tan.]
1. intr. (with over) To form a bark.
c. 1340. Cursor M. (Fairf.), 11824. And wiþ skratting he toke þe skurf, he barked ouer as a turfe.
2. trans. To treat with bark, steep in an infusion of bark; to tan.
1430. [See BARKED 2].
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 25. Barkyn lethyr, frunio, tanno.
1503–4. Act 19 Hen. VII., xix. Pream., Whedder the ledder be sufficiantly tanned and barked.
1565. Wills & Inv. N. C. (1835), 244. One hyde yt he had to barke for me.
1609. Skene, Reg. Maj., 152. They buy leather & barks it.
1865. Routledge’s Mag. Boys, Nov., 687. A cellar … used for the purpose of barking the nets of the fishermen.
3. To strip off the bark from (a tree); to cut off a complete circle of bark from it, so as to kill it.
1545. Act 37 Hen. VIII., vi. § 4. If any Person … unlawfully bark any Apple-trees.
1601. Holland, Pliny, I. 541. If trees be barked round about, they will die.
1796. C. Marshall, Garden. (1813), 429. Mice … are apt to bark and to kill young trees.
1878. Browning, La Saisiaz, 373. Barked the bole, and broke the bough.
b. fig.
1603. Shaks., Meas. for M., III. i. 72. Would barke your honor from that trunke you beare, And leaue you naked.
c. transf. To scrape or rub off the skin (esp. from the shins and joints); to graze, abrade.
1850. B. Taylor, Eldorado, xvii. (1862), 171. Barking my hand on the rough bark of a branchless pine.
1880. Besant & Rice, Seamy Side, xxvii. 227. He had barked his elbows, broken his shins.
4. To enclose with or as with bark; to encrust.
1633. T. Adams, Exp. 2 Pet. ii. 19 (1865), 544/2. Those anchorites that have barked up themselves in hollow trees.
1814. Cary, Dante’s Inf., XXIX. 73.
| From head to foot, | |
| A tetter bark’d them round. |
1840. De Quincey, Style, Wks. XI. 177. Some scaly leprosy … barking and hide-binding … the elastic flesh.
5. To bark (a squirrel, etc.): see quot.
[1828. Audubon, Ornithol., I. 294. A common way of killing squirrels is … to strike with the ball the bark of the tree immediately beneath the squirrel; the concussion produced by which kills the animal instantly without mutilating it.]
1865. Sala, in Daily Tel., 29 May, 5/1. Fellows that with their heavy barrels and small-bores can ‘bark a squirrel,’ that is to say, kill him by cutting away the bark that he is sitting on.
