stark

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Definitions (21)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (4)

  1. adjective Bare or blunt: "His language has become increasingly stark, to the point of sounding strident” (Robert Pear).
  2. adjective Complete or utter; extreme: stark poverty; a stark contrast.
  3. adjective Harsh; grim: "faced with that stark future” (Robert C. McFarlane). "[They] found it hard to accept such a stark portrait of unrelieved failure” (W. Bruce Lincoln).
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Examples (50)

  • They repeated over and over to me, “Uzelle, pek uzelle,” which is nothing but Charming, very charming.—The first sofas were covered with cushions and rich carpets, on which sat the ladies; and on the second, their slaves behind them, but without any distinction of rank by their dress, all being in the state of nature, that is, in plain English, stark naked, without any beauty or defect concealed. —  Lady Mary Wortley Montague
  • They repeated over and over to me; “UZELLE, PEK UZELLE,” which is nothing but, Charming, very Charming .—The first sofas were covered with cushions and rich carpets, on which sat the ladies; and on the second, their slaves behind them, but without any distinction of rank by their dress, all being in the state of nature, that is, in plain English, stark naked, without any beauty or defect concealed. —  Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M--y W--y M--e
  • There may be no better place than this one -- stark, little-known and shaped by a long human history of work and habitation -- in which to reconsider what makes a particular piece of land worth saving. —  High Country News - Most Recent
  • Thomas, I could help you up to the point that you use the word "stark" - at that point it becomes a matter of opinion. —  RealClimate
  • Women dressed as multicoloured as the land was stark, a focal point on every horizion. —  TravelPod.com Recent Updates
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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

bleak ·  grim ·  bare ·  barren ·  ghastly ·  sombre ·  startle ·  dim ·  gaunt ·  lifeless ·  icy ·  blank

Used in the same contextWord Family

stark:   starker
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (5)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English, stiff, severe, strong, from Old English stearc; see ster-1 in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (4)

  1. from Middle English stark, starc, sterk, sterc, stearc, from Anglo-Saxon stearc, strong, stiff, = Old Saxon stark = OFries. sterk, sterik = Dutch sterk = Middle Low German stark, sterk, Low German sterk = Old High German starc, starch, Middle High German starc, German stark = Icelandic stcrkr = Swedish stark = Danish stærk, strong, orig. stiff, rigid; cf. Old High German storchanēn, become rigid, Icelandic storkna = Danish störkne, coagulate, Gothic (Moesogothic) ga-staurknan, dry up; Lithuanian stregti, become rigid. Hence starch, starch.
  2. from Middle English stark, used apparently first in stark ded, literally ‘stiff dead,’ ‘dead and stiff’; being stark, a., taken in a quasi-adverbial sense, and extended later to a few other adjectives describing a person's condition (rarely in other uses): as, stark blind, stark drunk, stark mad, etc.
  3. from stark, a.
  4. Abbr. of stark-naked.
 

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/stɑrk/
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