Word.ws English Dictionary

larky

larky adjective: playful.

Adjective

larky (comparative larkier, superlative larkiest)

  1. Playful.
    • Bit of a card this Mr Willie Wich from what I hear. Old party keeps him in pretty tight by all accounts. Larky; girls.1927, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], Max Carrados Mysteries
    • You fancy yourself a larky buck, but there's alchemy between Jocasta and I you cannot begin to fathom. She'll fall out of love with you the moment you threaten us.2004, David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas, London: Sceptre (Hodder and Stoughton), →ISBN

Examples of larky in a sentence

  • This is Mr Wilson being larky, by the way.2009 February 8, “Quotes of the week ...”, in The Observer:
  • The 1987 film Personal Services, directed by Terry Jones and starring Julie Walters as “Christine Painter”, concentrated on the larky nature of her career.2015 November 16, Duncan Campbell, “Cynthia Payne obituary”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:

Forms of larky

comparativelarkier
superlativelarkiest

Origin of larky

From lark + -y.

Words formed from larky

Questions about larky

What does larky mean?
Larky means playful.
How do you use larky in a sentence?
This is Mr Wilson being larky, by the way.
What part of speech is larky?
Larky is an adjective.

Words near larky in the dictionary

  1. larks about
  2. larks around
  3. larksome
  4. larkspur
  5. larkspurs
  6. larky
  7. Larling
  8. Larmer
  9. larmier
  10. larmiers
  11. Larmon

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: larky (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-larky.wav.

Cite this entry: “larky.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/larky. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.