bark

Verb (1)

bark (third-person singular simple present barks, present participle barking, simple past and past participle barked)

1. (intransitive) To make a short, loud, explosive noise with the vocal organs (said of animals, especially dogs).
   • The neighbour's dog is always barking.
   • The seal barked as the zookeeper threw fish into its enclosure.

   Synonyms:

   give tongue, latrate

2. (intransitive) To make a clamor; to make importunate outcries.
   • And therefore they bark, and say the scripture maketh heretics.1530, Tyndale, A Pathway into the Holy Scripture
   • Where there is the barking of the belly, there no other commands will be heard, much less obeyed.1655, Thomas Fuller, The Church-history of Britain; […], London: […] Iohn Williams […], →OCLC, (please specify |book=I to XI)
3. (transitive) To speak sharply.
   • The sergeant barked an order.
   • Plainly he was prepared to bark out an interminable succession of charges against the Wanderer.1932, Delos W. Lovelace, King Kong, published 1965, page 3

Noun (1)

bark (plural barks)

1. The short, loud, explosive sound uttered by a dog, a fox, and some other animals.
2. (figuratively) An abrupt loud vocal utterance.
   • Fox’s clumsy figure, negligently dressed in blue and buff, seemed unprepossessing; only his shaggy eyebrows added to the expression of his face; his voice would rise to a bark in excitement.c. 1921, The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, volume 11
   • Long before Shap platform showed up around a corner and the two arms on the gradient post drooped in both directions at once, Duchess of Buccleuch's amiable throbbing purr at the stack [funnel, chimney] had become a fierce freight-engine bark, as she resolutely dragged at her enormous load.1949 January and February, F. G. Roe, “I Saw Three Englands–1”, in Railway Magazine, page 12
3. The quick opening of the hi-hat cymbal as it is hit, followed by its timely closing.
4. (countable) (video games) A short, repeatable, and unobtrusive voiceline spoken by an NPC.

Interjection

1. The sound of a dog barking.

   Synonyms:

   woof

Noun (2)

bark (countable and uncountable, plural barks)

1. The exterior covering of the trunk and branches of a tree or of various other woody plants.
   • The hardships of bark-collecting in the primeval forests of South America are of the severest kind, and undergone only by the half-civilized Indians and people of mixed race, in the pay of speculators or companies located in the towns. Those who are engaged in the business, especially the...1879, Friedrich August Flückiger et al., Pharmacographia..., page 346
   • Moving about 70 miles per hour, it crashed through the sturdy old-growth trees, snapping their limbs and shredding bark from their trunks.2012 December 26, John Branch, “Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 14 Nov 2013

   Synonyms:

   rind

2. Peruvian bark or Jesuit's bark, the bark of the cinchona from which quinine is produced.
3. Hard candy made in flat sheets, for instance out of chocolate, peanut butter, toffee or peppermint.
4. The crust formed on barbecued meat that has had a rub applied to it.
   • This softens the meat further, but at some loss of crunch to the bark.2009, Julie Reinhardt, She-Smoke: A Backyard Barbecue Book, page 151
5. The envelopment or outer covering of anything.
6. (US, Western, dialectal) Woodchips.

Verb (2)

bark (third-person singular simple present barks, present participle barking, simple past and past participle barked)

1. To strip the bark from; to peel.
   • Along the river freshly felled and barked trees told of the activity of beaver, and in slow current and in eddies the tops of their winter's food supply lay like submerged brush fences projecting above the surface.1922, A. M. Chisholm, A Thousand a Plate
2. To abrade or rub off any outer covering from.
   • I barked my shins climbing the fence.
   • Barcelona had been harried and hurried and stretched thin by the midway point in the second half. Tackles flew in. Toes were crushed, shins barked, ankles hacked.2019 May 8, Barney Ronay, “Liverpool’s waves of red fury and recklessness end in joyous bedlam”, in The Guardian
3. To girdle.
4. To cover or enclose with bark, or as with bark.
   • to bark the roof of a hut

Noun (3)

bark (plural barks)

1. (obsolete) A small sailing vessel, e.g. a pinnace or a fishing smack; a rowing boat or barge.
   • Nothing then remained for them but to commit their bark to the wind and waves.1828, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, volume I, London: William Harrison Ainsworth, page 210
2. (poetic) A sailing vessel or boat of any kind.
   • It is the star to every wandering barkc. 1609, William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116
   • We know not where we go, or what sweet dream
     May pilot us through caverns strange and fair
     Of far and pathless passion, while the stream
     Of life our bark doth on its whirlpools bear,
     Spreading swift wings as sails to the dim air; […]1817 December, Percy Bysshe Shelley, “The Revolt of Islam. […]”, in [Mary] Shelley, editor, The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. […], volume I, London: Edward Moxon […], published 1839, →OCLC...
3. A vessel, typically with three (or more) masts, with the foremasts (or fore- and mainmasts) square-rigged, and mizzenmast schooner-rigged.
   • Europeans would cross the ocean in large barks built for deck space and large holds.1997, Mark Kurlansky, Cod, page 114

Noun (4)

bark (plural barks)

1. (obsolete, slang) An Irish person.

Proper noun capitalized: Bark

Bark

1. A surname.