Definition of chark in English English dictionary
- A pointed stick, which when placed with the point against another piece of wood, and spun rapidly in alternate directions with the aid of attached cords, produces enough heat by friction to create a fire; a fire-drill
The discoverer of the chark, or fire-drill, an instrument for obtaining fire by artificial means, would be so great a benefactor to a people that had to suffer all the inconveniences resulting from occasional fireless hearths, that we may well understand why he may be invested by his astonished and delighted fellow-savages with miraculous or supernatural powers.
- A wine glass
At noon, each man got his half-chark (a wine glass) full of rum and a four-quart iron pot of fish soup made from salt salmon, potatoes and graham flour ... in the evening another half chark of rum and 20 cents as pay for the day's work.
- To reduce by strong heat, as to produce charcoal or coke; to calcine
The method which the Romans now taught them of charking the coal continues eſſentially the ſame until the preſent moment.
- Charcoal; coke
so I contrived to burn some wood here, as I had seen done in England, under turf, till it became chark or dry coal .
- A variety of hunting bird
A good chark will sometimes take as many as eight or ten bustards or five or six gazelles in the course of a morning.
- To make a grating sound
The hoarse charking conversation which they carried on was calculated to support the delusion.
- {v} to burn to a black cinder
- Charcoal; a cinder
- To burn to a coal; to char
