different between vagary vs lark

English

Etymology

From Latin vagus (“wandering”).

Pronunciation

• (General American, formerly) IPA^(key): /v?????i/
• (General American, now commonly) IPA^(key): /?ve????i/

Noun

vagary (plural vagaries)

1. An erratic, unpredictable occurrence or action.
   • 1871, Charles Kingsley, At Last: A Christmas In The West Indies, ch. 8:

     It now turns out that the Pitch Lake, like most other things, owes its appearance on the surface to no convulsion or vagary at all, but to a most slow, orderly, and respectable process of nature, by which buried vegetable matter, which would have become peat, and finally brown coal, in a temperate climate, becomes, under the hot tropic soil, asphalt and oil.
2. An impulsive or illogical desire; a caprice or whim.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:whim

   • 1905, Jack London, War of the Classes, Preface:

     And then came the day when my socialism grew respectable,—still a vagary of youth, it was held, but romantically respectable.

Derived terms

• vagarity
• vagarious

Related terms

• vague
• vagrant
• vagabond

Translations

See also

• vaguery

Anagrams

• Varyag

English

Alternative forms

• laverock, lavrock

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: läk, IPA^(key): /l??k/
• (General American) enPR: lärk, IPA^(key): /l??k/
• Rhymes: -??(?)k

Etymology 1

From Middle English larke, laverke, from Old English l?werce, l?werce, l?uricæ, from Proto-Germanic *laiwarik?, *laiwazik? (compare dialectal West Frisian larts, Dutch leeuwerik, German Lerche), from *laiwaz (borrowed into Finnish leivo, Estonian lõo), of unknown ultimate origin with no definitive cognates outside of Germanic.

Noun

lark (plural larks)

1. Any of various small, singing passerine birds of the family Alaudidae.
2. Any of various similar-appearing birds, but usually ground-living, such as the meadowlark and titlark.
3. (by extension) One who wakes early; one who is up with the larks.

   Synonyms: early bird, early riser

   Antonym: owl

Hyponyms

• (species in Alaudidae): woodlark, skylark, magpie-lark, horned lark, sea lark, crested lark, shorelark

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

lark (third-person singular simple present larks, present participle larking, simple past and past participle larked)

1. To catch larks (type of bird).

References

• lark on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Alaudidae on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons
• Alaudidae on Wikispecies.Wikispecies

Etymology 2

Origin uncertain, either

• from a northern English dialectal term lake/laik (“to play”) (around 1300, from Old Norse leika (“to play (as opposed to work)”)), with an intrusive -r- as is common in southern British dialects; or
• a shortening of skylark (1809), sailors' slang, "play roughly in the rigging of a ship", because the common European larks were proverbial for high-flying; Dutch has a similar idea in speelvogel (“playbird, a person of markedly playful nature”).

Noun

lark (plural larks)

1. A romp, frolic, some fun.
2. A prank.

Synonyms

• whim, especially in phrase on a whim, see also Thesaurus:whim

Derived terms

• on a lark

Related terms

• skylark (in verb sense "play")

Translations

Verb

lark (third-person singular simple present larks, present participle larking, simple past and past participle larked)

1. To sport, engage in harmless pranking.
   • 1855, Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South, Chapter 35,^[3]

     […] the porter at the rail-road had seen a scuffle; or when he found it was likely to bring him in as a witness, then it might not have been a scuffle, only a little larking […]

2. To frolic, engage in carefree adventure.

Translations

References

• Douglas Harper (2001–2021) , “lark”, in Online Etymology Dictionary
• Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, Springfield, Massachusetts, G.&C. Merriam Co., 1967

Anagrams

• Karl, Klar, Kral, klar