Starkest vs Stalkest - What's the difference?
starkest | stalkest |
(stark)
(obsolete) Hard, firm; obdurate.
Severe; violent; fierce (now usually in describing the weather).
* {{quote-magazine, title=The climate of Tibet: Pole-land
, date=2013-05-11, volume=407, issue=8835, page=80
, magazine=(The Economist)
(rare) Strong; vigorous; powerful.
* Sir Walter Scott
* Beaumont and Fletcher
Stiff, rigid.
* Spenser
* Shakespeare
* Ben Jonson
Hard in appearance; barren, desolate.
Complete, absolute, full.
* Ben Jonson
* Collier
* Selden
starkly; entirely, absolutely
* Fuller
* {{quote-book, year=1913, author=
, title=Lord Stranleigh Abroad
, chapter=4 (archaic) (stalk)
The stem or main axis of a plant, which supports the seed-carrying parts.
:
*
*:Three chairs of the steamer type, all maimed, comprised the furniture of this roof-garden, withon one of the copings a row of four red clay flower-pots filled with sun-baked dust from which gnarled and rusty stalks thrust themselves up like withered elfin limbs.
The petiole, pedicel, or peduncle of a plant.
Something resembling the stalk of a plant, such as the stem of a quill.
:(Grew)
(lb) An ornament in the Corinthian capital resembling the stalk of a plant, from which the volutes and helices spring.
One of the two upright pieces of a ladder.
:(Chaucer)
(label)
#A stem or peduncle, as in certain barnacles and crinoids.
#The narrow basal portion of the abdomen of a hymenopterous insect.
#The peduncle of the eyes of decapod crustaceans.
(lb) An iron bar with projections inserted in a core to strengthen it; a core arbor.
(lb) To approach slowly and quietly in order not to be discovered when getting closer.
*Sir (Walter Scott) (1771-1832)
*:As for shooting a man from behind a wall, it is cruelly like to stalking a deer.
*
*:But they had already discovered that he could be bullied, and they had it their own way; and presently Selwyn lay prone upon the nursery floor, impersonating a ladrone while pleasant shivers chased themselves over Drina, whom he was stalking .
(lb) To (try to) follow or contact someone constantly, often resulting in harassment.(w)
:
(lb) To walk slowly and cautiously; to walk in a stealthy, noiseless manner.
*(John Dryden) (1631-1700)
*:[Bertran] stalks close behind her, like a witch's fiend, / Pressing to be employed.
:(Shakespeare)
(lb) To walk behind something, such as a screen, for the purpose of approaching game; to proceed under cover.
*(Francis Bacon) (1561-1626)
*:The king"I must stalk ," said he.
*(Michael Drayton) (1563-1631)
*:One underneath his horse, to get a shoot doth stalk .
A particular episode of trying to follow or contact someone.
A hunt (of a wild animal).
To walk haughtily.
* Dryden
* Addison
* Mericale
As verbs the difference between starkest and stalkest
is that starkest is while stalkest is (archaic) (stalk).starkest
English
Adjective
(head)stark
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) stark, starc, from (etyl) stearc, . Related to (l). Modifying naked , an alternation of original .Adjective
(er)citation, passage=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.}}
- a stark , moss-trooping Scot
- Stark beer, boy, stout and strong beer.
- Whose senses all were straight benumbed and stark .
- Many a nobleman lies stark and stiff / Under the hoofs of vaunting enemies.
- The north is not so stark and cold.
- I picked my way forlornly through the stark , sharp rocks.
- I screamed in stark terror.
- A flower was growing, in stark contrast, out of the sidewalk.
- Consider the stark security / The common wealth is in now.
- He pronounces the citation stark nonsense.
- Rhetoric is very good or stark naught; there's no medium in rhetoric.
Derived terms
* (l)Adverb
(-)- He's gone stark , staring mad.
- She was just standing there, stark naked.
- held him strangled in his arms till he was stark dead.
citation, passage=“… 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. …”}}
Usage notes
In standard modern English, the adverb is essentially restricted to stark naked'' and phrases meaning "crazy" on the pattern of ''stark raving mad .Etymology 2
From (etyl) starken, from (etyl) .Anagrams
* * ----stalkest
English
Verb
(head)stalk
English
(wikipedia stalk)Etymology 1
From (etyl) stalke, diminutive of stale'' 'ladder upright, stalk', from (etyl) stalu 'wooden upright', from (etyl) ).Noun
(en noun)Etymology 2
From (etyl) stalken, from (etyl) -).Robert K. Barnhart and Sol Steinmetz, eds., ''Chambers Dictionary of Etymology , s.v. "stalk2" (New York: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd., 2006), 1057. Alternate etymology connects (etyl) 'to steal'.Verb
(en verb)Conjugation
(en-conj-simple)Noun
(en noun)References
Etymology 3
1530, 'to walk haughtily', perhaps from (etyl) 'high, lofty, steep, stiff'; see aboveVerb
(en verb)- With manly mien he stalked along the ground.
- Then stalking through the deep, / He fords the ocean.
- I forbear myself from entering the lists in which he has long stalked alone and unchallenged.