Word.ws English Dictionary

sark

/sɑːk//sɑːk/

sark noun: a garment worn against the torso, inclusive of shirts, tunics, undershirts, nightshirts, surplices.

Noun

sark (plural sarks)

  1. (archaic) A garment worn against the torso, inclusive of shirts, tunics, undershirts, nightshirts, surplices.
    • Near is the kirtle, but nearer the sark.
  2. (Northern England, Scotland) Synonym of shirt, whether worn against the skin or not.
    • The next thing the watchers saw was the laird struggling up the far bank and casting his coat from him, so that he rode in his sark.1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide
    • Then lorek's rear claws dug into the links of Iofur's chain-mail sark and ripped downward. The whole front came away, and Iofur lurched sideways to look at the damage, leaving lorek to scramble upright again.2007, Philip Pullman, His Dark Materials, Bluefire, →ISBN, page 259
    Synonyms:
    shirt, whether worn against the skin or not

Verb

sark (third-person singular simple present sarks, present participle sarking, simple past and past participle sarked)

  1. (transitive) To cover with sarking, or thin boards.

Proper noun (1) capitalized: Sark

Sark

  1. An island of the Bailiwick of Guernsey, Channel Islands.

Proper noun (2) capitalized: Sark

Sark

  1. A minor river in Dumfries and Galloway council area and Cumbria, forming part of the border between Scotland and England, which flows into the tidal Esk at Gretna; in full, the River Sark.
    • I have often been amused by travellers pointing out, first the Eden, just north of the station, and then the Esk, which young Lochinvar swam, as the Border; the real boundary is, of course, the little river Sark, just south of the Caledonian station at Gretna; […].1953 August, Basil M. Bazley, “Carlisle in 1905”, in Railway Magazine, page 507

Synonyms of sark

  • shirt
  • whether worn against the skin or not

Forms of sark

Noun
pluralsarks
Verb
third-person singular presentsarks
present participlesarking
past participlesarked
pastsarked

Plural of sark: sarks

Origin of sark

From Middle English serk, sark, serke, from Old English serċ, sierċ m; and serċe, sierċe f (“sark, shirt, shift, smock, tunic, corselet, coat of mail”), from Proto-West Germanic *sarki, from Proto-Germanic *sarkiz (“shirt, armour, hauberk”), from Proto-Indo-European *swerg-, *swerk- (“clothes worn outside”), from Proto-Indo-European *ser- (“to arrange, tack, tie, unite”). Cognate with Scots sark, serk (“shirt, shift”), North Frisian serk (“shirt”), Danish særk (“gown, shirt”), Swedish särk (“shirt, chemise”), Icelandic serkur (“nightshirt”).

Unknown, see Sercq and Wikipedia for more.

Probably derived from Proto-Brythonic *serx, of uncertain meaning and etymology but associated with "circularity".

Words formed from sark

Words that rhyme with sark

1 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about sark

What does sark mean?
Sark means a garment worn against the torso, inclusive of shirts, tunics, undershirts, nightshirts, surplices.
What part of speech is sark?
Sark can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce sark?
Sark is pronounced /sɑːk/.
What is the plural of sark?
The plural of sark is sarks.

Words near sark in the dictionary

  1. Sarit-Sarat
  2. Sarita
  3. Sariwon
  4. Sariyah
  5. sarizotan
  6. sark
  7. sarkanda
  8. sarkar
  9. sarkari
  10. sarkari Muslim
  11. sarkari Muslims

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sark (page history and authors); Sark (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.

Last updated:

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

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