barking

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of bark.

   The dogs were barking at every car that passed the gate.

   Barking is how a dog warns the household of a stranger.

   Note

   One spelling carries two kinds of bark. Barking is the dog's noise, and it is also the forester's job of stripping bark from a trunk, so barking a tree means peeling or girdling it. For the animal sound it takes no object (the dogs were barking). For sharp speech it does take one, as in barking orders. Latrant is an archaic, Latinate stand-in for the animal sense.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The characteristic sharp, loud cry produced by a dog, or the act of producing it.

   The dog's barking grew louder as the visitor approached the gate.

   Constant barking from the neighbor's pets prompted several complaints to the landlord.

   Similaryapping, yelping, woofing

   Note

   The noun can be counted: the plural barkings names separate outbursts rather than one continuous din. John Masefield's Sea Life in Nelson's Time (1905) pairs curious barkings with neighings heard in slaughterhouses, eerie noises whose source no one can see. The mass noun covers a steady racket (the barking kept us awake). Latration is the archaic, Latinate equivalent, a match for the latrant of the verb form.

3. 3
   adjectiveslangBritishNew Zealandabbreviationclipping

   Clipping of barking mad. British slang.

   Anyone who sinks their savings into that scheme is absolutely barking.

   She called the whole plan barking and refused to take any part in it.

   Note

   British slang that drops the second half of barking mad and keeps all of its force: it still means completely insane. It usually comes after a verb, as in you must be barking or the plan is barking. People aim it at a reckless stunt or a foolish scheme, and it reads as banter rather than diagnosis. Three stops short of Dagenham is a jokier British way of saying the same thing.

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