Word Direct Answers

What does "stark" mean?

Stark: Complete; absolute; full; perfect; entire. [Obs.] Consider the stark security The common wealth is in now. B. Jonson.

Additional senses

  1. 2.Strong; vigorous; powerful. A stark, moss-trooping Scot. Sir W. Scott. Stark beer, boy, stout and strong beer. Beau. & Fl.
  2. 3.Severe; violent; fierce. [Obs.] "In starke stours." [i. e., in fierce combats]. Chaucer.
  3. 4.Mere; sheer; gross; entire; downright. He pronounces the citation stark nonsense. Collier. Rhetoric is very good or stark naught; there's no medium in rhetoric. Selden.
  4. 5.Wholly; entirely; absolutely; quite; as, stark mind. Shak. Held him strangled in his arms till he was stark dead. Fuller. Stark naked, wholly naked; quite bare. Strip your sword stark naked. Shak. Note: According to Professor Skeat, "stark-naked" is derived from steort-naked, or start-naked, literally tail-naked, and hence wholly naked. If this etymology be true the preferable form is stark-naked.
  5. 6.To stiffen. [R.] If horror have not starked your limbs. H. Taylor.

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