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 1829. Buckstone, Billy Taylor, We've had a lark ourselves.

1836. Dickens, Pickwick, p. 5. 'Here's a lark!' shouted half a dozen hackney coachmen.

1838. Thomas Haynes Bayly. The Spitalfields Weaver. Don't offer me money, I warn you of that; no, no, when we're out on a lark, if you wish to treat me, well and good, but no money given.

1856. Whyte Melville, Kate Coventry, i. I like Cousin John's constant good-humour, and the pains he takes to give me a day's amusement whenever he can, or what he calls 'have Cousin Kate out for a lark.'

1870. Saturday Review, 21 May. But it is time that all vulgar habits of outrage and lark should be put a stop to, and, however inclined grown up men may be to look indulgently on mere boyish follies, we must have these offenders treated as a gang of 'snobs' would be who should smash busts in the Crystal Palace.

1877. Scribner's Monthly, Aug., p. 469. He dusted 'em reg'lar, an' wound 'em up an' set 'em goin' accordin' to rules; but he never tried no larks on 'em.

1882. Punch, vol. lxxxii, p. 69, col. 1. A fine young London gentleman, quite up to any lark.

1884. Henley and Stevenson, Deacon Brodie ['Three Plays', p. 61]. Fen larks. No rotten shirking, mind.

1888. J. Runciman, The Chequers, 121. I was only having a lark.

1893. Chambers' Journal, 25 Feb., p. 128. Somebody's been having a lark with you, old lady.

2. (old).—A boat.—Lex. Bal. (1811); Grose (1823); Matsell (1859).

Verb. (common).—1. To sport; to tease; to spree (q.v.).

1836. Barham, Ingoldsby Legends, ii. 200. Don't lark with the watch, or annoy the police.

1847. Thackeray, Vanity Fair, ii. xxxi. Payne was a staid English maid and personal attendant upon Mrs. Osborne, to whom the courier, as in duty bound, paid court, and whom Georgy used to lark dreadfully with accounts of German robbers and ghosts.

2. (old).—See Larking, sense 1.

3. (old).—See Larking, sense 2.

4. (American thieves').—A boy who steals newspapers from doorsteps.

Larker, subs. (old).—One given to Larking; see subs., sense 2.

1856. Whyte Melville, Kate Coventry, xii. 'Who's that girl on the chestnut?' I again heard asked by a slang-looking man, with red whiskers meeting under his chin; 'looks like a larker—I must get introduced to her.'

Larking, subs. (venery).—1. Irrumation.

1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v. Larking a lascivious practice that will not bear explanation.

2. (sporting).—1. To clear a jump; to go over like a bird. Also (2) see quot. 1825.

1815. Byron, Letters (to Moore, July 7). If so, you and I (without our wives) will take a lark to Edinburgh.

1825 Nimrod's Hunting Tour, p. 227. 'Exclusive of work for horses when hounds are running, there is another way of making use of horse-flesh in Leicestershire; and that is, in coming home from hunting, or what in the language of the day is called larking. One of the party holds up his hat, which is a signal for the start; and, putting their horses' heads in a direction for Melton, away they go, and stop at nothing till they get there.'

1834. Ainsworth, Rookwood, p. 294. Dick Turpin, meanwhile, held bravely on his course. Bess was neither strained by her gliding passage down the slippery hill-side, nor shaken by larking the fence in the meadow.

3. (common).—Frolicking: also horse-play and rowdyism.

1851-61. Mayhew, Lond. Lab. etc., ii. 325. There never had been more street larking, or street gambling.

1888. Indoor Paupers, p. 13. There was no hurry over the job—very much