Green’s Dictionary of Slang

frolicsome.

1828		‘The Song of the Young Prig’ in C. Hindley James Catnach (1878) 172: There’s not, for picking, to be had, / A lad so light and larky.
1849		Thackeray Pendennis I 316: The Penny Horrific Register; the Halfpenny Annals of Crime and History [...], The Raff’s Magazine, The Larky Swell, and other publications of the penny press.
1854		Delhi Sketch Bk 1 Sept. 97/2: ‘Fine larky girl [...] no humbug about her’.
1863		H. Kingsley Austin Elliot I 34: Austin, expressing himself in that low slangy way [...] said that my Lords were ‘uncommonly larky’.
1867		R. Whiteing Mr Sprouts, His Opinions 20: I feels a little bit larkish.
1878		J. Hatton Cruel London I 51: Death is a larky cove sometimes.
1886		Ipswich Jrnl 1 Sept. 2/5: The ‘Crutch-and-Toothpick’ brigade [...] and the larky undergraduates were the principal patrons.
1893		‘’Arriet on Labour’ in Punch 26 Aug. 88/1: I’m only just a work-girl, Poll, one of the larky drudges.
1894		A. Morrison Tales of Mean Streets (1983) 146: She was alwis a bit larky was Melier; but very good-’arted.
1900		Boy’s Own Paper 1 Dec. 132: Cobb was in rather a larky mood.
1900		Harrington & LeBrunn [perf. Marie Lloyd] The Girl in the Khaki Dress 🎵 I am a girl who's rather larky, always dressing myself in Khaki.
1910		H.G. Wells Hist. of Mr Polly (1946) 83: I may be a bit larky and cheerful in my manner [...] But it don’t mean anything. I ain’t that sort.
1925		S. Lewis Arrowsmith 319: I’d expected there’d be such larky retorts.
1934		O.O. McIntyre New York Day by Day 15 May [synd. col.] Every once in a while in a larkish manner he would buy them out.
1953		S. Bellow Augie March (1996) 12: I never had any special grief from it [i.e. anti-semitism] [...] being too larky and boisterous to take it to heart.
1959		A. Zugsmith Beat Generation 77: Her larky mood vanished.
1960		L. Davidson Night of Wenceslas 143: A noisy, larky bunch of teenagers tumbled off the tram.
2000		Indep. Rev. 1 May 12: The first song [...] is accompanied by some rather larky choreography.
2005		J. Stahl I, Fatty 186: My part-scared, part-larky outlooked was altered.
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 136: Once they’d had their strenuous wrestle on the bank and their larky, grappling, ducking swim in the pool.