Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The tough outer covering of the woody stems and roots of trees, shrubs, and other woody plants. It includes all tissues outside the vascular cambium.
  • noun A specific kind of bark used for a special purpose, as in tanning or medicine.
  • transitive verb To remove bark from (a tree or log).
  • transitive verb To rub off the skin of; abrade.
  • transitive verb To tan or dye (leather or fabric) by steeping in an infusion of bark.
  • transitive verb To treat (a patient) using a medicinal bark infusion.
  • noun The harsh sound uttered by a dog.
  • noun A sound, such as a cough, that is similar to a dog's bark.
  • intransitive verb To utter a bark.
  • intransitive verb To make a sound similar to a bark.
  • intransitive verb To speak sharply; snap.
  • intransitive verb To work as a barker, as at a carnival.
  • intransitive verb To utter in a loud, harsh voice.
  • idiom (bark up the wrong tree) To misdirect one's energies or attention.
  • noun A sailing ship with from three to five masts, all of them square-rigged except the after mast, which is fore-and-aft rigged.
  • noun A small vessel that is propelled by oars or sails.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Generally, the covering of the woody stems, branches, and roots of plants, as distinct and separable from the wood itself.
  • noun Specifically— In pharmacy, Peruvian or Jesuits' bark (see Cinchona).
  • noun In tanning, oak and hemlock barks.
  • To utter an abrupt explosive cry: said of a dog, and hence of other animals.
  • Figuratively, to clamor; pursue with unreasonable clamor or reproach: usually followed by at.
  • To cough.
  • To utter or give forth with a bark.
  • To break out with: as, to bark out flame.
  • To strip off the bark of, or remove a circle of bark from, as a tree; peel; specifically, to scrape off the outer or dead bark of. See barking, 1.
  • Hence To strip or rub off the outer covering of (anything, as the skin): as, to bark one's shins.
  • To cover or inclose with bark: as, to bark a house.
  • To cover, as the bark does a tree; incrust.
  • To apply bark to, as in the process of tanning; tan.
  • To color with an infusion or a decoction of bark: as, to bark sails or cordage.
  • To kill (game) by the concussion of a bullet which strikes the bark of a limb at the spot on which the animal is crouched, or by the flying bark.
  • noun Nautical, a three-masted vessel, fore-and-aft rigged on the mizzenmast, the other two masts being square-rigged.
  • noun A vessel of any kind, especially a sailing vessel of small size.
  • noun The abrupt explosive cry of a dog; hence, a cry resembling that of the dog, uttered by some other animals.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To strip the bark from; to peel.
  • transitive verb To abrade or rub off any outer covering from; as to bark one's heel.
  • transitive verb To girdle. See Girdle, v. t., 3.
  • transitive verb To cover or inclose with bark, or as with bark.
  • noun The short, loud, explosive sound uttered by a dog; a similar sound made by some other animals.
  • intransitive verb To make a short, loud, explosive noise with the vocal organs; -- said of some animals, but especially of dogs.
  • intransitive verb To make a clamor; to make importunate outcries.
  • noun Formerly, any small sailing vessel, as a pinnace, fishing smack, etc.; also, a rowing boat; a barge. Now applied poetically to a sailing vessel or boat of any kind.
  • noun (Naut.) A three-masted vessel, having her foremast and mainmast square-rigged, and her mizzenmast schooner-rigged.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun obsolete A small sailing vessel, e.g. a pinnace or a fishing smack; a rowing boat or barge.
  • noun poetic a sailing vessel or boat of any kind.
  • noun nautical A three-masted vessel, having her foremast and mainmast square-rigged, and her mizzenmast schooner-rigged.
  • verb intransitive To make a short, loud, explosive noise with the vocal organs (said of animals, especially dogs).
  • verb intransitive To make a clamor; to make importunate outcries.
  • verb transitive To speak sharply.
  • noun The short, loud, explosive sound uttered by a dog.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old Norse börkr.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From Middle English berken, to bark, from Old English beorcan.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English barke, boat, from Old French barque, from Old Italian barca, from Latin; akin to Latin bāris, Egyptian flatbottom boat, from Greek, from Egyptian byr, br.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English barke 'boat', from Middle French barque, from Late Latin barca, from Vulgar Latin barica, from Ancient Greek βάρις (báris) 'Egyptian boat', from Coptic bari 'small boat', from Egyptian bēre.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English barken, berken, borken, from Old English beorcan ("to bark, bark at"), from the Proto-Germanic *berkanan (“to bark, rumble”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰereg- (“to make a noise, growl, bark”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰer- (“to drone, hum, buzz”). Cognate with Icelandic berkja ("to bark, bluster"), Icelandic barki ("throat, windpipe"), Lithuanian dialect burgė́ti, Serbo-Croatian brgljati ("to murmur"). For the noun, compare Old English beorc, bearce ("barking").

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English bark, from Old English barc ("bark"), from Old Norse bǫrkr ("tree bark"), from Proto-Germanic *barkuz, probably related to *birkijōn (“birch”) (compare English birch), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰergo- (compare Latin frāxinus ("ash"), Lithuanian béržas ("birch")), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰereg- (“to gleam; white”) (compare English bright); akin to Danish bark, Icelandic börkr, Low German borke and Albanian berk ("the inner bark of a tree trunk").

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Examples

Comments

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  • I was thinking of a dog when I put this on the list.

    March 30, 2010

  • "16. To kill (game) by the concussion of a bullet which strikes the bark of a limb at the spot on which the animal is crouched, or by the flying bark."

    --Century Dictionary

    January 19, 2011

  • "The tartar deposited by bottled wine or other liquor, encrusting the bottle." --Walter Rye's A Glossary of Words Used in East Anglia, 1895. Published for the English Dialect Society by Henry Frowde.

    May 26, 2011

  • an Old English 'dog yelp', Norse 'tree rind' OR a French 'boat'

    February 8, 2013