[bahrk] 
| 1. | Nautical. a sailing vessel having three or more masts, square-rigged on all but the aftermost mast, which is fore-and-aft-rigged. |
| 2. | Literary. a boat or sailing vessel. |
| bark 3 also barque (bärk) n.
[Middle English barke, boat, from Old French barque, from Old Italian barca, from Latin.] |
| barque (bärk) n. Variant of bark3. |
| bark (bärk) Pronunciation Key
The protective outer covering of the trunk, branches, and roots of trees and other woody plants. Bark includes all tissues outside the vascular cambium. In older trees, bark is usually divided into inner bark, consisting of living phloem, and outer bark, consisting of the periderm (the phelloderm, cork cambium, and cork) and all the tissues outside it. The outer bark is mainly dead tissue that protects the tree from heat, cold, insects, and other dangers. The appearance of bark varies according to the manner in which the periderm forms, as in broken layers or smoother rings. Bark also has lenticels, porous corky areas that allow for the exchange of water vapor and gases with the interior living tissues. |
barque
sailing ship of three or more masts, the rear (mizzenmast) being rigged for a fore-and-aft rather than a square sail. Until fore-and-aft rigs were applied to large ships to reduce crew sizes, the term was often used for any small sailing vessel. In poetic use, a bark can be any sailing ship or boat.
Learn more about barque with a free trial on Britannica.com.
