US /bɑrk/ UK /bɑːk/
noun Freq #79127

Meanings

  1. 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.

  2. 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

Synonyms
1 noun · a sailing ship with three... barksailing ship
2 noun · literary or archaic: a... vesselboat
Word family
Related forms bargebarkship

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.

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