Meanings
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1
noun
a sailing ship with three or more masts, square-rigged except on the rearmost mast
The British barque crossed the Atlantic under a full spread of sail.
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2
noun
literary or archaic: a sailing vessel or boat of any kind
The poem imagines a lonely barque moving across a silver sea.
Thesaurus
Etymology
From Middle English barke, borrowed through French barque from Italian barca or Medieval Latin barca, ultimately from Greek baris, 'an Egyptian boat.' It is a doublet of bark and is related through the same history to barge.