starking
present participle of stark
• Kristang, rat kings, straking
Source: Wiktionary
Stark, a. [Compar. Starker; superl. Starkest.] Etym: [OE. stark stiff, strong, AS. stearc; akin to OS. starc strong, D. sterk, OHG. starc, starah, G. & Sw. stark, Dan. stærk, Icel. sterkr, Goth. gastaúrknan to become dried up, Lith. strëgti to stiffen, to freeze. Cf. Starch, a. & n.]
1. Stiff; rigid. Chaucer. Whose senses all were straight benumbed and stark. Spenser. His heart gan wax as stark as marble stone. Spenser. Many a nobleman lies stark and stiff Under the hoofs of vaunting enemies. Shak. The north is not so stark and cold. B. Jonson.
2. Complete; absolute; full; perfect; entire. [Obs.] Consider the stark security The common wealth is in now. B. Jonson.
3. Strong; vigorous; powerful. A stark, moss-trooping Scot. Sir W. Scott. Stark beer, boy, stout and strong beer. Beau. & Fl.
4. Severe; violent; fierce. [Obs.] "In starke stours." [i. e., in fierce combats]. Chaucer.
5. Mere; sheer; gross; entire; downright. He pronounces the citation stark nonsense. Collier. Rhetoric is very good or stark naught; there's no medium in rhetoric. Selden.
Stark, adv.
Definition: Wholly; entirely; absolutely; quite; as, stark mind. Shak. Held him strangled in his arms till he was stark dead. Fuller. Stark naked, wholly naked; quite bare. Strip your sword stark naked. Shak.
Note: 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, v. t.
Definition: To stiffen. [R.] If horror have not starked your limbs. H. Taylor.
Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition
6 November 2024
(adverb) in a searching manner; “‘Are you really happy with him,’ asked her mother, gazing at Vera searchingly”
The earliest credible evidence of coffee-drinking as the modern beverage appeared in modern-day Yemen. In the middle of the 15th century in Sufi shrines where coffee seeds were first roasted and brewed for drinking. The Yemenis procured the coffee beans from the Ethiopian Highlands.
