adjective, adverb
adjective (starker, starkest)
1 (often disapproving) looking severe and without any colour or decoration:
I think white would be too stark for the bedroom. * The hills stood stark against the winter sky.
2 unpleasant; real, and impossible to avoid:
The author paints a stark picture of life in a prison camp. * a stark choice / warning * The remains of the building stand as a stark reminder of the fire. * He now faces the stark reality of life in prison. * The stark fact is that even with more time, we still couldn't raise enough money.
3 very different to sth in a way that is easy to see:
stark alternatives / differences * Social divisions in the city are stark. * The good weather was in stark contrast to the storms of previous weeks.
4 [onlybeforenoun] complete and total:
The children watched in stark terror.
starkly adverb:
The interior is starkly simple. * The lighthouse stood out starkly against the dark sky. * We are starkly aware of the risks. * These theories contrast starkly with the reality of everyday life.
starkness noun [U]
adverb ~ naked completely naked
IDIOMS see RAVING
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About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
This entry for stark is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Does stark appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — stark appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.
