Stark

How to spell stark

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce stark

What does stark mean?

1. adjectiveSevere, bare, or harshly plain, with nothing softened or hidden.
2. adverbCompletely or utterly, used to intensify the word that follows.

Stark in a sentence

• adjective

  The report laid out the stark truth about the company finances.

• adverb

  The toddler ran stark naked across the lawn before bath time.

• adjective

  The stark white walls of the office made the room feel cold.

• adverb

  The long flight delay left several passengers stark raving mad.

Where does stark come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Stark comes from the Old English adjective stearc, which meant stiff, strong, hard, or rigid, and it traces back through a shared Germanic ancestor that also gave German its word stark, still meaning strong today. The early sense was very physical: something stark was firm, unyielding, or harsh to the touch. Over the centuries the meaning drifted from sheer physical strength toward bleakness and severity, so that a stark landscape became a bare and forbidding one, and a stark contrast became a harsh and obvious one. The intensifying use seen in phrases like stark naked and stark raving mad preserves the older flavour of utterness and rigidity, meaning completely or absolutely. Because the word is short, native, and spelled exactly as it sounds, its spelling has stayed remarkably stable since Anglo-Saxon times.

How the word is built

• stark (from Old English stearc: stiff, strong, rigid); a single unanalysable root with no prefix or suffix