Bark

How to spell bark

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce bark

What does bark mean?

1. verbTo make the sharp, loud cry typical of a dog.
2. nounThe sharp, loud cry made by a dog.
3. nounThe tough protective outer layer covering the trunk and branches of a tree.

Bark in a sentence

• verb

  The neighbour's terrier will bark at every passing car.

• noun

  A single sharp bark from the puppy woke the whole house.

• noun

  The rough bark of the old oak was flaking away in long strips.

• verb

  Trained guard dogs bark to warn of intruders.

• noun

  The old saying claims his bark is worse than his bite.

• noun

  She scraped a patch of bark from the birch to study the beetles beneath.

Where does bark come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This short word actually hides two unrelated histories that happen to share a spelling. The 'dog' meaning descends from the Old English verb beorcan, meaning 'to make the sharp cry of a dog', a word of native Germanic stock that imitated the sound itself. The 'tree' meaning came into English much later from the Old Norse borkr, meaning the rind or outer covering of a tree, brought over by Scandinavian settlers. A third sense, a small sailing vessel (also spelled barque), arrived through Old French barque from the Late Latin barca, meaning 'small boat'. Because all three landed on the same blunt one-syllable spelling, the word looks far simpler than its tangled ancestry suggests. The phrase 'his bark is worse than his bite' keeps the oldest, dog-related sense alive in everyday speech.

How the word is built

• bark (single root; from Old English beorcan 'to make a dog's cry', merged in spelling with Old Norse borkr 'rind of a tree')