Stark
Stark (stark) , adjective
[Old English stark stiff, strong, Anglo-Saxon stearc; akin to Old Saxon starc strong, Dutch sterk, Old High German starc, starah, German & Swedish stark, Danish staerk, Icelandic sterkr, Gothic gastaúrknan to become dried up, Lithuanian stregti to stiffen, to freeze. Compare Starch, a. & n.]
1.
Stiff; rigid. — Chaucer
Whose senses all were straight benumbed and stark.
His heart gan wax as stark as marble stone.
Many a nobleman lies stark and stiff
Under the hoofs of vaunting enemies.
The north is not so stark and cold.
2.
Complete; absolute; full; perfect; entire. [Obsolete]
Consider the stark security
The common wealth is in now.
3.
Strong; vigorous; powerful.
A stark, moss-trooping Scot.
Stark beer, boy, stout and strong beer.
4.
Severe; violent; fierce. [Obsolete]
In starke stours
5.
Mere; sheer; gross; entire; downright.
He pronounces the citation stark nonsense.
Rhetoric is very good or stark naught; there's no medium in rhetoric.
Stark (stark) , adverb
Wholly; entirely; absolutely; quite; as, stark mad. — Shakespeare
Held him strangled in his arms till he was stark dead.
Strip your sword stark naked.
Collocations (1)
Stark naked , wholly naked; quite bare.
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.
Stark , transitive verb
To stiffen. [Rare]
If horror have not starked your limbs.