• (GA) enPR: stärk, IPA: /stɑɹk/
• (RP) enPR: stärk, IPA: /stɑːk/

stark (comparative starker, superlative starkest)

1. (obsolete) Hard, firm; obdurate.
2. Severe; violent; fierce (now usually in describing the weather).
3. (archaic) Strong; vigorous; powerful.
   • 1805, Walter Scott, The Lay of the Last Minstrel:

     a stark, moss-trooping Scot

   • (Can we date this quote?), Francis Beaumont; John Fletcher, “The Beggar's Bush”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: Printed for Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1647, OCLC 3083972 ↗, Act 3, scene 2:

     Stark beer, boy, stout and strong beer.

4. Stiff, rigid.

   • Whose senses all were straight benumbed and stark.

   • c. 1597, William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act V, scene iii]:

     Many a nobleman lies stark and stiff / Under the hoofs of vaunting enemies.

   • 1611, Ben Jonson, Catiline His Conspiracy

     The north is not so stark and cold.

5. Hard in appearance; barren, desolate.

   I picked my way forlornly through the stark, sharp rocks.

6. Complete, absolute, full.

   I screamed in stark terror.

   A flower was growing, in stark contrast, out of the sidewalk.

   • 1611, Ben Jonson, Catiline His Conspiracy

     Consider, first, the stark security / The commonwealth is in now.

   • 1689 (first published posthumously), John Selden, Table-Talk

     Rhetoric is very good or stark naught; there's no medium in rhetoric.

   • 1851 November 13, Herman Melville, chapter 17, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, OCLC 57395299 ↗:

     Ramadans, and prolonged ham-squattings in cold, cheerless rooms were stark nonsense

• Italian: duro, nudo, crudo

• German: streng
• Italian: violento, furioso
• Spanish: severo, duro

• Italian: inflessibile, forte, gagliardo, robusto

• Italian: desolato, aspro, selvaggio

• German: steif
• Italian: rigido, stecchito
• Spanish: rígido

• German: völlig, ganz, total
• Italian: assoluto, completo, totale, bell'e buono, puro e semplice, vero e proprio
• Spanish: absoluto, completo

stark (not comparable)

1. starkly; entirely, absolutely

   He's gone stark, staring mad.

   She was just standing there, stark naked.

   • 1655, Thomas Fuller, Church-History of Britain

     […] held him strangled in his arms till he was stark dead.

• French: tout
• German: völlig, total
• Spanish: completamente

stark (starks, present participle starking; past and past participle starked)

1. (obsolete or dialect) To stiffen.

• starkish
• starkly
• starkers

• (GA) IPA: /stɑɹk/

1. Surname
2. An unincorporated community in Butts County, Georgia.
3. An unincorporated community in Stark County, Illinois.
4. A tiny city in Neosho County, Kansas.
5. An unincorporated community in Elliott County, Kentucky.
6. An unincorporated community in Pike County, Missouri.
7. A small town in Coos County, New Hampshire.
8. A small town in Herkimer County, New York.
9. An unincorporated community in Boone County, West Virginia.
10. A small town in Vernon County, Wisconsin.

stark (uncountable)

1. (fiction)The language spoken in the Ender's Game series, which is nearly identical to American English