Definition of "bark"

And therefore they bark, and say the scripture maketh heretics.

1530, Tyndale, A Pathway into the Holy Scripture

Where there is the barking of the belly, there no other commands will be heard, much less obeyed.The spelling has been modernized.

1655, Thomas Fuller, edited by James Nichols, The Church History of Britain, […], new edition, volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: […] [James Nichols] for Thomas Tegg and Son, […], published 1837

Plainly he was prepared to bark out an interminable succession of charges against the Wanderer.

1932, Delos W. Lovelace, King Kong, published 1965, page 3

Sudden anger rose in him. “What I’m looking for,” he barked, “is to be left in peace.” His voice trembled with a rage far bigger than her intrusion merited, the rage which shocked him whenever it coursed through his nervous system, like a flood.

2001, Salman Rushdie, Fury: A Novel, London: Jonathan Cape, page 5

While McCarthy prowled the touchline barking orders, his opposite number watched on motionless and expressionless and, with 25 minutes to go, decided to throw on Nicolas Anelka for Kalou.

2011 January 5, Mark Ashenden, “Wolverhampton 1 - 0 Chelsea”, in BBC‎

Fox’s clumsy figure, negligently dressed in blue and buff, seemed unprepossessing; only his shaggy eyebrows added to the expression of his face; his voice would rise to a bark in excitement.

c. 1921, The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, volume 11

Long before Shap platform showed up around a corner and the two arms on the gradient post drooped in both directions at once, Duchess of Buccleuch's amiable throbbing purr at the stack [funnel, chimney] had become a fierce freight-engine bark, as she resolutely dragged at her enormous load.

1949 January and February, F. G. Roe, “I Saw Three Englands–1”, in Railway Magazine, page 12

The hardships of bark-collecting in the primeval forests of South America are of the severest kind, and undergone only by the half-civilized Indians and people of mixed race, in the pay of speculators or companies located in the towns. Those who are engaged in the business, especially the collectors themselves, are called Cascarilleros or Cascadores, from the Spanish word Cascara, bark.

1879, Friedrich August Flückiger et al., Pharmacographia...‎, page 346

Moving about 70 miles per hour, it crashed through the sturdy old-growth trees, snapping their limbs and shredding bark from their trunks.

2012, John Branch, “Snow Fall : The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek”, in New York Time‎

This softens the meat further, but at some loss of crunch to the bark.

2009, Julie Reinhardt, She-Smoke: A Backyard Barbecue Book, page 151

Along the river freshly felled and barked trees told of the activity of beaver, and in slow current and in eddies the tops of their winter's food supply lay like submerged brush fences projecting above the surface.

1922, A. M. Chisholm, A Thousand a Plate

Barcelona had been harried and hurried and stretched thin by the midway point in the second half. Tackles flew in. Toes were crushed, shins barked, ankles hacked.

2019 May 8, Barney Ronay, “Liverpool’s waves of red fury and recklessness end in joyous bedlam”, in The Guardian‎

It is the star to every wandering bark

c. 1609, William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116

We know not where we go, or what sweet dreamMay pilot us through caverns strange and fairOf far and pathless passion, while the streamOf life our bark doth on its whirlpools bear,Spreading swift wings as sails to the dim air; […]

1817 December, Percy Bysshe Shelley, “The Revolt of Islam. […]”, in [Mary] Shelley, editor, The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. […], volume I, London: Edward Moxon […], published 1839, page 272

Whether my bark went down at sea, / Whether she met with gales, […]

a. 1887 (date written), Emily Dickinson, “[Book I.—Life] Whether my bark went down at sea”, in Mabel Loomis Todd and T[homas] W[entworth] Higginson, editors, Poems, First Series, Boston, Mass.: Roberts Brothers, published 1890, page 38

Europeans would cross the ocean in large barks built for deck space and large holds.

1997, Mark Kurlansky, Cod, page 114