Beorcan

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Old English verb meaning to make a loud, harsh cry, as a dog does when it barks or a person shouts aloud
2. A verb from Old English describing the loud, sharp sound made by a dog or the act of crying out in a roar
3. Meaning to bark or to utter a loud, rough cry, used in early English for the call of an animal or person

Etymology: Beorcan was an Old English verb meaning "to bark," the sound a dog makes, and it is one of the few native English words for that action to survive only in the records of the language rather than in its speech. Its root goes back to a Germanic word for the same sound, and it is related to the Old High German "bellan," which gave modern German "bellen," still the verb for a dog barking. English words for the sound of a dog therefore share a common ancestry with German, not with the Latin-derived vocabulary that came later. The verb was rare even in Old English, attested mainly in glosses and a handful of texts, and it faded from use long before Middle English. Its disappearance is typical of many Old English verbs for animal sounds, which were gradually replaced by "bark," a word whose exact origin is more obscure and may itself be of Germanic or Scandinavian influence.