Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a frolic, a game; thus larkiness, a propensity for such pleasures; also used ironically/negatively.

c.1811		‘A Leary Mot’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 78: Milling up and down with cut heads, and lots of broken ribs / But the lark being over – they ginned themselves at jolly Tom Cribb’s.
1819		Thomas Moore ‘Milling Match’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 86: His pall, well-known through many a lark and spree.
1829		‘Lag’s Lament’ (trans. of an untitled cant poem) in Vidocq (1829) IV 266: Though very hard, I confess it appears, / To be lagged, for a lark, for fourteen years.
1833		‘London, at Twelve at Night’ in Fun Alive O! 26: Then they stagger through the streets, ripe and ready for a lark.
1838		Cornwall Chron. (Launceston, Tas.) 11 Aug. 2/7: A party of pleasure (or as their slang goes, a prime spree, or a lark).
1844		New Sprees of London 5: Always get plenty of small silver before you start on a lark, to avoid the necessity of producing sovereigns, which might chance to occur at an inconvenient time.
1848		G.W.M. Reynolds Mysteries of London II (2nd Ser.) 34: I’ve a precious good mind to have a lark, and pit you against his Grace’s tailor.
1853		‘Cuthbert Bede’ Adventures of Mr Verdant Green I 83: They think it no end of a lark.
1854		Delhi Sketch Bk 1 Mar. 27/2: For a lark [...] he [...] pretended to fall off his horse.
1866		Broad Arrow Jack 21: Somebody’s having a lark, I reckon.
1871		Hamilton Spectator (Vic.) 7 Jan. 1/7: Sometimes he may be tempted out on a ‘lark,’ or a ‘spree’.
1875		‘Aliph Cheem’ Lays of Ind (1905) 24: And the tricks that he played / With his troops on parade, / Putting all his Judge-Advocate larks in the shade.
1877		‘’Arry on His ’Oliday’ in Punch 13 Oct. 160/2: O Charlie, such larks as I’m ’aving!
1883		J. Greenwood Tag, Rag & Co. 53: Half a dozen of them [...] ripe for a ‘lark,’ came yelling and whooping to the scene.
1886		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 19 June 2/4: Three of tbe belles of Custer City, D. T.. while on a lark the other day cleared out the store of Mr. Albreio a prominent citizen of the town.
1888		‘Rolf Boldrewood’ Robbery Under Arms (2006) 252: My word! it was the greatest lark out.
1890		Bird o’ Freedom 15 Jan. 7/1: Here is the extract I spoke of. It was larks, I tell you.
1890		Dead Bird (Sydney) 4 Oct. 5/2: ‘No larks, old chap; fair dinkum’.
1897		N.Z. Observer and Free Lance (Auckland) 27 Nov. 7/2: He is as smart as they make them, and you don’t play any larks on him.
1898		Kipling ‘Stalky’ in Complete Stalky & Co. (1987) 13: Come on, Corkham. It’s no end of a lark.
1900		Boy’s Own Paper 10 Nov. 84: Mr. Cobb will be very angry when he hears about this lark of yours [...] because he hates practical joking.
1905		H. Green Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 142: My, if this ain’t a lark!
1912		Rollitt & LeBrunn [perf. Marie Lloyd] I’ve never lost my last train yet 🎵 But although I love a lark / In the day and in the dark / I have never lost my last train yet.
1915		E. Pound letter 18 Apr. in Paige (1971) 58: Nobody has written satire, in the best English iambic tradition since God knows when. Hood was sheer larks.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 68: Met her once in the park. In the dark. What a lark.
1925		Wodehouse Carry on, Jeeves 237: It’s an awful lark. He’s going to give a lecture to the school.
1930		(con. 1900s–10s) Dos Passos 42nd Parallel in USA (1966) 71: We’re couple of noblemen sons out for a bit of a bloody lark, guv’ner.
1938		G. Kersh Night and the City 258: They say there’s going to be a bus strike for the Coronation. Won’t it be a lark?
1942		G. Marx letter in Groucho Letters (1967) 18: Harpo and Chico are itinerant rug peddlars who are weary of laying rugs and enter a monastery just for a lark.
1942		J. MacLaren-Ross ‘I Had to Go Sick’ in Memoirs of the Forties (1984) 268: All the cookhouse fires had been let out. ‘Bloody lark this is, ain’t it?’ said the cooks.
1954		K. Amis letter 18 Oct. in Leader (2000) 406: Hilly, for a lark you know, ripped his flies open.
1962		R. Cook Crust on its Uppers 29: A great lark, and something [i.e. S&M] I’d never actually seen before.
1967		E. Shepard Doom Pussy 174: Am I a lark to you? Four-flushers are nil in my book.
1974		D. Goines Swamp Man 110: To the remaining brothers, the search was just a lark.
1990		(con. early 1950s) J. Ellroy L.A. Confidential 210: Access to quote classy call girls unquote who might pose for a lark if their quote crazy sugar daddyo unquote agreed.
1998		G. Burn Happy Like Murderers 125: Having a lark. She was a bit of a girl, Rena. She was a goer.
2000		Indep. on Sun. Rev. 30 Jan. 16: Sod this for a lark.
2004		(con. 1960s-70s) T. Taylor Top Fellas 24/1: Belting long-hairs was just a nasty lark, there was no war.
2015		L. McInerney Glorious Heresies 244: [S]he’d invited her past the threshold for larks.
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 190: ‘It’a a lark, right?’ ‘Right’.

2. a propensity for fun and games.

1821

Egan Life in London (1869) 355: No one of the masquers present created more fun, showed more lark, or entered more into the spirit of the scene.

3. the butt of a joke or ‘game’.

1850

Thackeray Pendennis II 11: ‘Don’t make a lark of me, hang it, Poyntz,’ said Foker, turning red.

4. (also larkey) an amusing person.

c.1858		J.H. Green Reformed Gambler 137: Merely to make the game interesting, my larkey, I will try you with two thousand dollars.
1977		P. Reading ‘Eavesdropped’ in Nothing For Anyone 39: Jim was a lark today in the Rose & Crown.

5. any form of activity, occupation.

1850		Cork Examiner 6 Feb. 4/3: ‘I mixed with astreet patterers (men who make speeches in the streets on [the] destitute mechanics’ lark’.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor III 57/1: Oh! it’s a good lark just here, sir, but tremendous hard work, for there’s so many figures to work.
1936		J. Curtis Gilt Kid 119: I’ll be round to-morrow morning with bags of dough in my pocket and all the dope on the marrying lark.
1943		‘Henry Green’ Caught (2001) 162: An officer can’t afford to get mixed up with his men on that sort of a lark.
1958		(con. 1940s) B. Behan Borstal Boy 122: Glad to know that this bloody Christmas lark was over.
1959		W. Hall Long and the Short and the Tall Act II: It doesn’t do to count on ‘ifs’ in this lark.
1962		F. Norman Guntz 27: I knew little of the theatre lark.
1975		‘P.B. Yuill’ Hazell and the Three-card Trick (1977) 99: That ship’s casino lark, I could be on to something there.
1981		W. Russell Educating Rita I ii: Is this the absolute maximum I can expect from this livin’ lark?
1998		Guardian Sport 18 Sept. 16: It’s all very well this book lark. What I hadn’t cottoned on to was the publicity.
2000		Indep. Rev. 14 Feb. 8: Sod this violin lark.
2007		Indep. 16 May 30/6: Who’s the chief honcho in this Christianity lark?
2015		‘Elvis Costello’ Unfaithful Music 390: [A]n attempt to scheme our way back into the pop lark.

6. (also larks) a criminal scheme.

1881		Brooklyn Dly Eagle (NY) 11 Dec. 4/7: ‘The Ballad of the Bunco Man’ [...] He sported a light overcoat, / Wore a most stunning spark / Was always lavish with his cash / When out upon a lark.
1924		C.J. Dennis ‘Knight’s Return’ in Chisholm (1951) 85: ’E grabs ’is bag, an’ views me battered dile / With sudden fears uv spielers an’ their larks.
1956		‘Charles Raven’ Und. Nights 32: I’m going steady from now on. No more larks for Joe.
1960		F. Norman in Daily Mail 18 May in Norman’s London (1969) 94: The protection racket is probably one of the easiest larks to run in the entire world.
1981		(con. c.1915) A. Harding in Samuel East End Und. 156: When I came out of prison he was in the racing lark with the Raddies.
1999		C. Dexter Remorseful Day (2000) 99: There’d have to be an end to all that stolen-property lark.