Quark

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /kwɑːk/

Definitions

1. A fundamental particle that combines with others of its kind to form protons and neutrons within atomic nuclei
2. A type of elementary particle that constitutes matter and is essential for forming protons and neutrons in atomic structures
3. This is a basic particle that joins together to create protons and neutrons, influencing the behavior of atomic nuclei

Etymology: Murray Gell-Mann coined "quark" in 1963 for the particles that make up protons and neutrons, and by his own account he chose it almost at random. Years later, in a 1978 letter to the Oxford English Dictionary, he tied the word to a line from James Joyce's Finnegans Wake (1939): "Three quarks for Muster Mark!" He had read it as a pub order for "three quarts," which is why he pronounced it "kwawk" with a rhyme to "pork." Joyce's context suggests otherwise. The word there is most likely a variant of "quawk," the harsh cry of a bird, and Joyce probably meant it to sound like the modern pronunciation. The word has a separate, older history in German. "Quark" there means cottage cheese or curd cheese, borrowed into English as a cheese term, and it is a doublet of Slavic words such as "tvorog" and "twaróg," which also mean curd cheese. The two words share no meaning in physics, but they share a root in the sense of curdled, thickened milk.