stark

• (General American) enPR: stärk, IPA^(key): /stɑɹk/
• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: stärk, IPA^(key): /stɑːk/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɑː(ɹ)k
• Homophone: stock (non-rhotic, father-bother merger)

From Middle English stark, starc, from Old English stearc, starc (“stiff, rigid, unyielding, obstinate, hard, strong, severe, violent”), from Proto-West Germanic *stark, from Proto-Germanic *starkuz (“stiff, strong”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)terg- (“rigid, stiff”).

Cognate with Saterland Frisian sterc (“strong”), Dutch sterk (“strong”), Low German sterk (“strong”), German stark (“strong”), Danish stærk (“strong”), Swedish stark (“strong”), Norwegian sterk (“strong”), Icelandic sterkur (“strong”). Related to starch.

In the phrase stark naked: an alternation of Middle English stert naked, from stert (“tail”), a literal parallel to the modern butt naked.

stark (comparative starker, superlative starkest)

1. (obsolete) Hard, firm; obdurate.
2. Severe; violent; fierce (now usually in describing the weather).
   • 2013 May 11, “The climate of Tibet: Pole-land”, in The Economist‎^[1], volume 407, number 8835, page 80:

     Of all the transitions brought about on the Earth’s surface by temperature change, the melting of ice into water is the starkest. It is binary. And for the land beneath, the air above and the life around, it changes everything.

3. (poetic, literary or archaic) Strong; vigorous; powerful.
   • c. 1622, John Fletcher, Philip Massinger [et al.?], “Beggars Bush”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1647, →OCLC, Act III, scene ii:

     Stark beer, boy, stout and strong beer.

   • 1805, Walter Scott, “(please specify the page)”, in The Lay of the Last Minstrel: A Poem, London: […] [James Ballantyne] for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, […], and A[rchibald] Constable and Co., […], →OCLC:

     a stark, moss-trooping Scot

4. Stiff, rigid.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 44:

     His heauie head, deuoide of carefull carke, / Whose sences all were straight benumbd and starke.

   • c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene iii]:

     Many a nobleman lies stark and stiff / Under the hoofs of vaunting enemies.

   • 1611, Ben[jamin] Jonson, Catiline His Conspiracy, London: […] [William Stansby?] for Walter Burre, →OCLC, (please specify the page):

     The north is not so stark and cold.

5. Plain in appearance; barren, desolate.

   I picked my way forlornly through the stark, sharp rocks.

   • 2004, Gary Lutz, “Uncle”, in Peter Conners, editor, PP/FF: An Anthology, Buffalo, N.Y.: Starcherone Books, published 2006, →ISBN, page 179:

     I would have to remind her, counteringly, that you don’t pick the person who fronts your life—you get picked, you watch the picker’s ankles vanish into the scrunched socks afterward (his whole body going blank behind the blue-black of the uniform), and the picker goes off in the starkest of transportations: you keep an ear cocked ever after for the return of his van and its paraphernalian clatter in the gravelled driveway.

   • 2007 January 28, Michael Pollan, “Unhappy Meals”, in The New York Times‎^[2], →ISSN:

     First, the stark message to “eat less” of a particular food has been deep-sixed; don’t look for it ever again in any official U.S. dietary pronouncement.

   • 2011 April 8, Erin Meister, “Reveling in the real Taiwain^{[sic – meaning Taiwan]}”, in The Washington Post‎^[3], →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 26 April 2023, Travel‎^[4]:

     The modern, glass-fronted buildings surrounding the massive skyscraper Taipei 101 in the Xinyi District suggest a shift toward cleaner, starker development, but a trip to older parts of the city reveals hidden corners untouched by modernity.
     The oldest section, Wanhua, with its winding corridors and quiet decay, offers a glimpse of the city’s bygone days. At its bustling heart is the busy Longshan Temple. I bump past a flurry of tourists, worshipers and monks selling prayer beads outside the gates to reach the controlled chaos within, where hundreds of faithful light incense and present offerings at myriad shrines to Buddha and other deities.

6. Naked.
   • 1817 December, Percy Bysshe Shelley, “The Revolt of Islam. […]”, in [Mary] Shelley, editor, The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. […], volume I, London: Edward Moxon […], published 1839, →OCLC, page 211:

     They bore me to a cavern in the hill
     Beneath that column, and unbound me there;
     And one did strip me stark; and one did fill
     A vessel from the putrid pool; one bare
     A lighted torch, and four with friendless care
     Guided my steps the cavern-paths along […]

7. Complete, absolute, full.

   I screamed in stark terror.

   A flower was growing, in stark contrast, out of the sidewalk.

   • 1611, Ben[jamin] Jonson, Catiline His Conspiracy, London: […] [William Stansby?] for Walter Burre, →OCLC, (please specify the page):

     Consider, first, the stark security / The commonwealth is in now.

   • 1689 (first published posthumously), John Selden, Table-Talk

     Rhetoric is very good or stark naught; there's no medium in rhetoric.

   • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 17, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:

     Ramadans, and prolonged ham-squattings in cold, cheerless rooms were stark nonsense

• starken
• starkly
• starkness

stark (not comparable)

1. starkly; entirely, absolutely

   He's gone stark, staring mad.

   She was just standing there, stark naked.

   • 1655, Thomas Fuller, The Church-history of Britain; […], London: […] Iohn Williams […], →OCLC, (please specify |book=I to XI):

     […] held him strangled in his arms till he was stark dead.

   • 1913, Robert Barr, chapter 4, in Lord Stranleigh Abroad‎^[5]:

     “… That woman is stark mad, Lord Stranleigh. Her own father recognised it when he bereft her of all power in the great business he founded. …”

In standard modern English, the adverb is essentially restricted to stark naked and phrases meaning "crazy" on the pattern of stark raving mad.

From Middle English starken, from Old English stearcian (“to stiffen, become hard, grow stiff or hard”), from Proto-Germanic *starkōną, *starkēną (“to stiffen, become hard”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)terg- (“rigid, stiff”). Cognate with German erstarken (“to strengthen”).

stark (third-person singular simple present starks, present participle starking, simple past and past participle starked)

1. (obsolete or dialect) To stiffen.

• starkish
• starkly
• starkers

• Karst, Trask, karst, karts, skart

From Middle High German starc, from Old High German stark, from Proto-West Germanic *stark.

• IPA^(key): /ʃtark/, [ʃtaʁk], [ʃtaɐ̯k], [ʃtaːk]

• Audio:

  (file)

• Audio:

  (file)

• Audio (Austria):

  (file)

• Homophone: stak (some speakers)

stark (strong nominative masculine singular starker, comparative stärker, superlative am stärksten)

1. strong (intense, powerful, unyielding)
2. strong (having a high concentration of some ingredient, e.g. alcohol)

   Coordinate terms: gemischt, schwach

3. (of an action, especially sports) good, great, skilled
4. (colloquial, slightly dated) brilliant, awesome
5. (colloquial, dated) incredible, unbelievable

   ein starkes Stück ― (please add an English translation of this usage example)

   starker Tobak ― (please add an English translation of this usage example)

   • 1924, Thomas Mann, Der Zauberberg [The Magic Mountain], volume 1, Berlin: S. Fischer, page 69:

     Nun, es sind Eheleute, in Gottes Namen, soweit ist die Sache in Ordnung. Aber am hellen Morgen, das ist doch stark.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

6. (dated, euphemistic) overweight, fat
7. (grammar) strong (inflecting according to a pattern distinct from another called "weak")

• affenstark

• “stark” in Duden online
• “stark” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache
• Friedrich Kluge (1883) “stark”, in John Francis Davis, transl., Etymological Dictionary of the German Language, published 1891

Inherited from Proto-Slavic *starъ + -k.

• IPA^(key): /ˈstark/
• Rhymes: -ark
• Syllabification: stark

stark m pers (female equivalent starka)

1. grandfather

   Synonyms: dżadek, ópa

• Eùgeniusz Gòłąbk (2011) “dziadek”, in Słownik Polsko-Kaszubski / Słowôrz Pòlskò-Kaszëbsczi‎^[6]
• “stark”, in Internetowi Słowôrz Kaszëbsczégò Jãzëka [Internet Dictionary of the Kashubian Language], Fundacja Kaszuby, 2022

Cognate with High German stark, Dutch sterk.

• IPA^(key): /stark/, /staːk/

stark (comparative starker, superlative starkst)

1. strong, powerful

• dull
• heftig
• hevig
• ossig
• slimm
• stevig
• dannig
• düchtig
• swied

• Starkde/Stärkde

From Proto-Germanic *starkuz, whence also Old English stearc, Old Norse sterkr.

stark

1. strong

• starchī

• German: stark
• Yiddish: שטאַרק (shtark)

Deverbal from sterczeć (starczyć).

• (Greater Poland):
  • (Southern Greater Poland) IPA^(key): /ˈstark/

stark m inan

1. (Southern Greater Poland) spike, tip (that which juts out)

• Oskar Kolberg (1877) “stark”, in “Rzecz o mowie ludu wielkopolskiego”, in Zbiór wiadomości do antropologii krajowéj (in Polish), volume 1, III (Materyjały etnologiczne), page 31

stark

1. genitive dual/plural of starka

From Old Swedish starker, from Old Norse starkr, from Proto-Germanic *starkuz, from Proto-Indo-European *sterg-.

• Audio:

  (file)

stark (comparative starkare, superlative starkast)

1. strong; able to use great force

   en stark tyngdlyftare

   a strong weightlifter

   starka muskler

   strong muscles

   stark som en björn

   strong as an ox

   (literally, “strong as a bear”)

2. strong; capable of withstanding great (physical) force
3. strong; highly stimulating to the senses

   starkt ljus

   bright light

4. (of food) hot, spicy

   världens starkaste chilipeppar

   the world's hottest chili pepper

   Nisses chili con carne är för stark för mig

   Nisse's chili con carne is too spicy for me

5. strong; having a high concentration of an essential; possibly alcohol

   starkt kaffe

   strong coffee

   starka drycker

   strong drink [beverages]

   starksprit

   hard liquor

6. (grammar) strong
7. (military) strong; not easily subdued or taken

• (able to use great force): kraftfull
• (capable of withstanding force): stadig
• (spicy): het
• (having intense odor or flavor): frän, skarp, stickande

• stark som en björn
• stark som en oxe
• stark som en häst
• starkt verb, stark böjning
• stor stark

• styrka
• stärka
• styrkelyft

• oregelbundet verb

• stark in Svenska Akademiens ordböcker

• raskt