STARK • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Stark

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adjective

Stark adj. (compar. starker; superl. starkest)

Stiff; rigid. "Whose senses all were straight benumbed and stark." "His heart gan wax as stark as marble stone." "Many a nobleman lies stark and stiff Under the hoofs of vaunting enemies." "The north is not so stark and cold."

Complete; absolute; full; perfect; entire. (Obs.) "Consider the stark security The common wealth is in now."

Strong; vigorous; powerful. "A stark, moss-trooping Scot." "Stark beer, boy, stout and strong beer."

Severe; violent; fierce. (Obs.) "In starke stours" (i. e., in fierce combats).

Mere; sheer; gross; entire; downright. "He pronounces the citation stark nonsense." "Rhetoric is very good or stark naught; there's no medium in rhetoric."

adverb

Stark adv. Wholly; entirely; absolutely; quite; as, stark mad. "Held him strangled in his arms till he was stark dead."

Stark naked, wholly naked; quite bare. "Strip your sword stark naked." Note: According to Professor Skeat, "stark-naked" is derived from steort-naked, or start-naked, literally tail-naked, and hence wholly naked. If this etymology be true the preferable form is stark-naked.

verb

Stark v. t. To stiffen. (R.) "If horror have not starked your limbs."

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Etymology of 'Stark'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Stark" Quotes from Famous Books

... in vasts of death! O Flame That thrills the stark expanse; Let Love and Longing be ...

— The California Birthday Book • Various

... used were war-clubs and short knives. A suitable place was selected. The whole village of the Tetons emptied itself to witness the combat. Men, women, and children swarmed about the arena. The two youthful combatants made their appearance, stark naked, and took their positions about thirty yards apart. Just when the signal was given, Do-ran-to's eye caught that of his betrothed Ni-ar-gua in the crowd. Then said his heart, "Be strong and my arm big!" There was no fear ...

— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... that the smell of hunger was in the air. The armed men were emaciated. Lights came on, and stark, harsh shadows lay black upon the ground. Calhoun's captors were uniformed, but the uniforms hung loosely upon them. Where the lights struck upon their faces, their cheeks were hollow. They were cadaverous. ...

— This World Is Taboo • Murray Leinster

... The serene surface has not given back the bright forms of children, laughing and gathering the summer flowers on its banks. As it sneaks like a culprit through the scarred fields of battle, it washes bare the bones of the dead in crumbling uniforms—bringing, stark and staring, to the upper air once more, the blanched skeleton and the ...

— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke

... small and summary symbols, the horizon is a streak of clouds and there is a deliberate shrinkage from physical refinement. The purpose of the picture is rather to express with the maximum of power the savagery of passion and the stark nature ...

— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer

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