Definition of "carking"

carking

verb
1. present participle and gerund of cark
adjective
comparative more carking, superlative most carking
1. (archaic) Wearying, distressing (of care, or similar words).
  Quotations
  After mutual protestations of friendship and regard, he […] took his leave in a strange perplexity of mind, occasioned by the images of love, intruding upon the remonstrances of carking care.
  1751, [Tobias] Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to IV), London: Harrison and Co., […]
  For nowadays, the whale-fishery furnishes an asylum for many romantic, melancholy, and absent-minded young men, disgusted with the carking cares of earth, and seeking sentiment in tar and blubber.
  1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 35, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, page 175
noun
plural carkings
1. (archaic) Wearying; distress.
  Quotations
  What anxious cares and carkings have gnaw'd thy Breast, when Ravens and dumb Creatures have committed themselves to God's Wisdom and Goodness?
  1705, Anthony Horneck, The Crucified Jesus, page 419