cark

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English carken (“to be anxious”), from Old English carcian, becarcian (“to be anxious, be anxious about, care for, take charge of, look after”), from car- (“care”) + formative -cian (suffix).

Verb

cark (third-person singular simple present carks, present participle carking, simple past and past participle carked)

1. (obsolete, intransitive) To be filled with worry, solicitude, or troubles.
2. (obsolete, transitive) To bring worry, vexation, or anxiety.
   • 1831, Adam Clarke, VI p. 600

     Carnal pleasures are the sins of youth: ambition and the love of power, the sins of middle age: covetousness and carking cares, the crimes of old age.

Noun

cark (plural carks)

1. (obsolete) A noxious or corroding worry.
   • Spenser

     His heavy head, devoid of careful cark.

   • Motherwell

     Fling cark and care aside.

   • R. D. Blackmore

     Freedom from the cares of money and the cark of fashion.

2. (obsolete) The state of being filled with worry.

Etymology 2

From caulk

Verb

cark (third-person singular simple present carks, present participle carking, simple past and past participle carked)

1. Eye dialect spelling of caulk.

References

• cark in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913

Anagrams

• rack