bark [OE] Dogs have always barked, so it is not surprising that to bark is a very old Germanic word. If someone’s bark is worse than their bite [M17th] they are not as ferocious as they appear. To bark at the moon [M17th], meaning ‘to make a fuss with no effect’, developed from a Middle English use of bark for angry or useless speech. To bark up the wrong tree is from 19th-century America. People have been barking or barking mad since the 1920s. The bark of a tree [ME], from Old Norse, is possibly related to the name of the birch tree [OE]. Bark or barque [ME] is also an old-fashioned word for a boat from Latin barca ‘ship’s boat’, from which we get embark [M16th].