Barques

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A type of sailing vessel typically characterized by a fore-and-aft rig and often used for coastal navigation
2. Referring to ships that generally have at least three masts and are used for both cargo and passenger transport
3. Describing a category of boats designed for both leisure and work, featuring various rigging configurations and a sturdy hull structure

Etymology: "Barques" is the plural of "barque", a word whose ancestry runs back to ancient Egypt. The Egyptian term "bꜣjr" named a transport ship (and, confusingly, a type of fish). Over the centuries it passed through Coptic and ancient Greek, where "bâris" meant specifically an Egyptian boat, and then into Latin as "bāris" and Late Latin "barca". Italian and Medieval Latin speakers carried the word north, and it reached Middle French as "barque" before entering English as "barke", meaning simply "boat". The English word has since narrowed. Today a barque is a sailing ship with three or more masts, with its square-rigged foremast and fore-and-aft rigged mizzen, a precise sense that developed long after the word first meant any small vessel. "Bark" and "barge" are doublets of the same word, descended from the same Latin source by different routes into English.