stark

¹

[stahrk]

adjective

starker, starkest 

1. sheer, utter, downright, or complete.

   This plan is stark madness!

2. harsh, grim, or desolate, as a view, place, etc..

   Her photos capture the stark desert landscape.

3. extremely simple or severe.

   With its stark interior and rough ride, the car scores low in our luxury car ranking.

4. bluntly or sternly plain; not softened or glamorized.

   He panicked suddenly at the stark reality of the approaching deadline.

5. distinct, sharp, or vivid.

   The thriving community gardens stood in stark contrast to vacant land and abandoned buildings.

6. stiff or rigid in substance, muscles, etc.

7. rigid in death.

8. Archaic.,  strong; powerful; massive or robust.

adverb

1. utterly, absolutely, or quite.

   stark mad.

2. Chiefly Scot. and North England.,  in a stark manner; stoutly or vigorously.

Stark

²

[stahrk, shtahrk]

noun

1. Harold Raynsford 1880–1972, U.S. admiral.

2. Johannes 1874–1957, German physicist: Nobel Prize 1919.

3. John, 1728–1822, American Revolutionary War general.

stark

¹

/ stɑːk /

adjective

1. (usually prenominal) devoid of any elaboration; blunt

   the stark facts

2. grim; desolate

   a stark landscape

3. (usually prenominal) utter; absolute

   stark folly

4. archaic,  severe; violent

5. archaic,  rigid, as in death (esp in the phrases stiff and stark, stark dead )

6. short for stark-naked

adverb

1. completely

   stark mad

Stark

²

noun

1. Dame Freya ( Madeline ) (ˈfreɪə). 1893–1993, British traveller and writer, whose many books include The Southern Gates of Arabia (1936), Beyond Euphrates (1951), and The Journey's Echo (1963)

2. Johannes (joˈhanəs). 1874–1957, German physicist, who discovered the splitting of the lines of a spectrum when the source of light is subjected to a strong electrostatic field ( Stark effect , 1913): Nobel prize for physics 1919

Other Word Forms

• starkly adverb
• starkness noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of stark¹

First recorded before 900; (adjective) Middle English; Old English stearc “stiff, firm”; cognate with German stark “strong”; akin to Old Norse sterkr “strong”; akin to starch, stare; (adverb) Middle English sterke, derivative of the adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of stark¹

Old English stearc stiff; related to Old Norse sterkr , Gothic gastaurknan to stiffen

Synonym Study

See austere, bare ¹.

Example Sentences

Jayson Stark was 16 years into what is now a 46-year Hall of Fame baseball-writing career when he walked into Baltimore’s Camden Yards on the night of Sept. 6, 1995, knowing exactly what was about to happen and having no idea what to expect.

From Los Angeles Times

“Baseball history is normally unexpected — you don’t know when it’s going to be made, how it’s going to be made — and when it happens, that’s where the goose bumps come in,” said Stark, who writes for The Athletic and was a baseball columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer in 1995.

From Los Angeles Times

“The way the whole thing developed, it just felt organic and authentic, because it spoke to the power of numbers in baseball,” Stark said.

From Los Angeles Times

“I think it was the single most important moment in the revival of baseball, the recovery of baseball, from that strike,” Stark said.

From Los Angeles Times

The initial wave of demonstrations began Aug. 25, with thousands gathering outside the country’s parliament to decry one stark example of such inequality: a $3,000 housing allowance for lawmakers that was nearly 10 times the minimum wage in Jakarta.

From Los Angeles Times

Related Words

• austere 
• bleak 
• depressing 
• desolate 
• grim 
• harsh