Word.ws English Dictionary

rark up

rark up verb: to tell (someone) off.

Verb

rark up (third-person singular simple present rarks up, present participle rarking up, simple past and past participle rarked up)

  1. (New Zealand, slang, transitive) To tell (someone) off.
  2. (New Zealand, slang, transitive) To provoke or hurry (someone) into doing something.
    • Helping to rark-up the crowd at any world series event is MC John McDonald.2019 August 23, “Top darts players converge on Hamilton”, in Radio NZ
  3. (New Zealand, slang, transitive) To make (someone) angry or annoyed.
    • I know I rark up the neighbours a bit . . . I'm settling down a bit now though.2016 June 6, “Nightmare neighbour promises to tidy up his act”, in Stuff

Noun

rark up (plural rark ups)

  1. (New Zealand, slang) A telling off.
    • I lived to tell the tale, but after I got dragged out of the crevasse, I got a bit of a rark-up, which was totally reasonable.2016 September 26, “'Bit of a rark-up' from Sir Ed”, in Otago Daily Times
  2. (New Zealand, slang) A provocation.

Forms of rark up

Verb
third-person singular presentrarks up
present participlerarking up
past participlerarked up
pastrarked up
Noun
pluralrark ups

Origin of rark up

Unknown. [1990s].

Questions about rark up

What does rark up mean?
Rark up means to tell (someone) off.
What part of speech is rark up?
Rark up can be a verb or a noun.
What is the past tense of rark up?
The past tense of rark up is rarked up.

Words near rark up in the dictionary

  1. Raritans
  2. raritie
  3. rarities
  4. rarity
  5. rark
  6. rark up
  7. rark ups
  8. rarked up
  9. rarking up
  10. rarks up
  11. rarley

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rark up (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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