Carking
The word means "worrisome" or "burdensome." Â It has been called the present participle of a verb, "cark." As a noun, a "cark" is a burden or responsibility. Â It was used by Herman Melville in "Moby Dick" in Chapter 35: "The Mast-Head," just four paragraphs from the end. Â The sentence in which it appears reads: "For nowadays, the whale-fishery furnishes an asylum for many romantic, melancholy, and absent-minded young men, disgusted with the carking cares of earth . . . ."
carking
present participle of cark
• arcking, craking, racking
Source: Wiktionary
Cark"ing, a.
Definition: Distressing; worrying; perplexing; corroding; as, carking cares.
Cark, n. Etym: [OE. cark, fr. a dialectic form of F. charge; cf. W. carc anxiety, care, Arm karg charge, burden. See Charge, and cf. Cargo.]
Definition: A noxious or corroding care; solicitude; worry. [Archaic.] His heavy head, devoid of careful cark. Spenser. Fling cark and care aside. Motherwell. Ereedom from the cares of money and the cark of fashion. R. D. Blackmore.
Cark, v. i.
Definition: To be careful, anxious, solicitous, or troubles in mind; to worry or grieve. [R.] Beau. & fl.
Cark, v. t.
Definition: To vex; to worry; to make by anxious care or worry. [R.] Nor can a man, independently . . . of God's blessing, care and cark himself one penny richer. South.
Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition
1 April 2025
(adverb) at the present or from now on; usually used with a negative; “Alice doesn’t live here anymore”; “the children promised not to quarrel any more”
The word “coffee” entered the English language in 1582 via the Dutch “koffie,” borrowed from the Ottoman Turkish “kahve,” borrowed in turn from the Arabic “qahwah.” The Arabic word qahwah was traditionally held to refer to a type of wine.
