Larker, subs. (old).—One given to Larking; see subs., sense 2.
1856. Whyte Melville, Kate Coventry, xii. ‘Who’s that girl on the
chestnut?’ I again heard asked by a slang-looking man, with red
whiskers meeting under his chin; ‘looks like a larker—I must get
introduced to her.’
Larking, subs. (venery).—1. Irrumation.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v. Larking a lascivious practice that
will not bear explanation.
2. (sporting).—1. To clear a jump; to go over like a bird. Also (2) see
quot. 1825.
1815. Byron, Letters (to Moore, July 7). If so, you and I (without
our wives) will take a lark to Edinburgh.
1825. Nimrod’s Hunting Tour, p. 227. ‘Exclusive of work for horses
when hounds are running, there is another way of making use of
horse-flesh in Leicestershire; and that is, in coming home from
hunting, or what in the language of the day is called larking. One
of the party holds up his hat, which is a signal for the start;
and, putting their horses’ heads in a direction for Melton, away
they go, and stop at nothing till they get there.’
1834. Ainsworth, Rookwood, p. 294. Dick Turpin, meanwhile, held
bravely on his course. Bess was neither strained by her gliding
passage down the slippery hill-side, nor shaken by larking the
fence in the meadow.