Lark vs Nark - What's the difference?
lark | nark |
Any of various small, singing passerine birds of the family Alaudidae .
Any of various similar-appearing birds, but usually ground-living, such as the meadowlark and titlark.
One who wakes early; one who is up with the larks.
(British, slang) A police spy or informer.
* 1912 , , Act I,
(slang) To serve or behave as a spy or informer.
(slang) To annoy or irritate.
(slang) To complain.
(transitive, slang, often imperative) To stop.
As a proper noun lark
is , from lark as a byname or for a catcher and seller of larks.As a noun nark is
(british|slang) a police spy or informer or nark can be (narcotics officer).As a verb nark is
(slang) to serve or behave as a spy or informer.lark
English
Alternative forms
* (l), (l)Etymology 1
From (etyl) larke, laverke, from (etyl) ), of unknown ultimate origin with no known cognates outside of Germanic.Noun
(en noun)Synonyms
* (one who wakes early) early bird, early riserHyponyms
* woodlark, skylark, magpie-lark, horned lark, sea lark, crested lark, shorelarkExternal links
* (lark) * (Alaudidae) * (Alaudidae)Etymology 2
Origin uncertain, either * from a northern English dialectal term (lake)/), 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 .Synonyms
* whim, especially in phrase on a whimDerived terms
* on a larkReferences
* *Anagrams
*nark
English
(wikipedia nark)Etymology 1
From (etyl) nak.Alternative forms
* narcNoun
(en noun)- It’s a—well, it’s a copper’s nark , as you might say. What else would you call it? A sort of informer.
Verb
(en verb)- It really narks me when people smoke in restaurants.
- He narks in my ear all day, moaning about his problems.
- Nark it! I hear someone coming!
