Forms: 5–7 barke, 5– barque, 6– bark. [a. F. barque, 15th c. ad. Pr., Sp. or It. barca:—L. barca (in Paulinus Nolanus c. 400). Not in OFr., where the word used was barge.
Barge and bark are probably identical in origin, and possibly from Celtic; Thurneysen shows that OIr. barc (a fem. a-stem) may, if native, represent an original *barga, with dialectal by-form *barca, which would satisfactorily account at once for OF. barge, and the common Romanic barca. Diez takes barca as an early syncopated variant of the conjectural *bārica, mentioned under BARGE, but as barca occurs c. 400 and *bārica not at all, this is improbable. As to the original meaning, Isidore, c. 640, says ‘Barca est, quae cuncta navis commercia ad litus portat. Hanc navis in pelago propter nimias undas suo suscipit gremio.’ So Florio (1598), explains It. barca as ‘a barke, boate, wherrie, or lighter’; ed. 1611 has ‘any kinde of Barke, Barge, or Boate’; Minsheu (1623), explains Sp. barca as ‘a great boat, a barke, a skiffe, a hoarse boat’; and Cotgr. (1611) has Fr. barque ‘a barque, little ship, great boat.’ Cf. BARGE sb. 2–4. The barca was thus apparently, originally, a large ship’s boat, used as a lighter; on the Mediterranean, the name continued to be applied to an open boat, even while extended to a small vessel with sails; the latter was the sense with which the word was taken from French into English, and which it still retains both in general and specific use; but in the end of 16th c., the more primitive sense of ‘large rowing boat, barge,’ was reintroduced from the languages of the Mediterranean.]
1. A small ship; in earlier times, a general term for all sailing vessels of small size, e.g., fishing-smacks, xebecs, pinnaces; in modern use, applied poetically or rhetorically to any sailing vessel, ‘our gallant bark’; = BARGE 1.
1475. Caxton, Jason, 104. Some sayd that Iason was rentred in to the barque.
1494. Fabyan, VII. ccxliv. 286. Flemynges: the whiche shyppyd them in smalle caruyles and barkys.
1552. Huloet, Barke or little shyppe, lembus.
1585. Act 27 Eliz., ii. § 9. Every Owner and Master of any Ship, Bark or Boat.
1596. Shaks., Merch. V., II. vi. 15. The skarfed barke puts from her natiue bay.
1625. K. Long, trans. Barclay’s Argenis, II. x. 93. A Pirate’s Bark, well trimmed and rigged against stormes.
1667. Milton, P. L., II. 288. Whose Bark … Or Pinnace, anchors in a craggy Bay.
a. 1687. Petty, Pol. Arith., iii. (1691), 59. Seamen … do sometimes Sail in small Barks, sometimes in midling Ships, and sometimes in great Vessels of Defence.
1718. Pope, Iliad, I. 182. We launch a bark to plough the watery plains.
1769. Falconer, Dict. Marine (1789), Bark, a general name given to small ships.
1851. Dixon, W. Penn, xvii. (1872), 142. Who had crossed the Atlantic in their barks.
b. fig. (Cf. ship, vessel.)
1605. Bacon, Adv. Learn., II. 70. Many other barques of knowledge haue beene cast away.
c. 1800. K. White, Lett. (1837), 323. The poor bark of mortality.
1821. Shelley, Adonais, lv. My spirit’s bark is driven, Far from the shore.
2. A rowing boat; formerly a large flat boat, a barge; now only poetically and vaguely; cf. sense 1.
1598. Barret, Theor. Warres, V. iv. 136. One cart to cary a bridge bark [i.e., for constructing a bridge].
1611. Cotgr., Barque, a barke, little ship, great boat.
1715. Lond. Gaz., No. 5384/7. A Distribution was made among the Fleet of the Barks for landing the Infantry and the Shallops for towing those Barks.
1756. C. Lucas, Ess. Waters, II. 63. Let him not send us to sea … in an open barque, and without a pilot.
1790. Cowper, Iliad, I. 174. A bark with lusty rowers well supplied.
1813. Scott, Rokeby, II. xxxi. The … swain May lightly row his bark to shore.
3. spec. A sailing vessel of particular rig; in 17th c. sometimes applied to the barca-longa of the Mediterranean; now to a three-masted vessel with fore- and main-masts square-rigged, and mizen-mast ‘fore-and-aft’ rigged: till recent times a comparatively small vessel; now [c. 1887] there are many of 3,000 to 5,000 tons, nearly all the larger steamers being barks. (In this sense frequently spelt barque by way of distinction.)
1601. Holland, Pliny, I. 190. The Cyrenians made fregates; the Phœnicians the bark, the Rhodians the Pinace and Brigantine.
1628. Hobbes, Thucyd. (1822), 23. You had want of long barks against the Æginetæ.
1687. Lond. Gaz., No. 2228/1. Four Gallies, 4 Galiots, 2 Barques, and some other Vessels are fitting here. Ibid., No. 2248/1. The Bark that attends these Gallies is laden with Ammunition … and has likewise on board 30 Soldiers. Ibid. (1722), No. 6096/1. A French Snow or Bark … The said Snow had two Masts, and is of the Burthen of 50 or 60 Tons.
1769. Falconer, Dict. Marine (1789), Bark … is peculiarly appropriated by seamen to those which carry three masts without a mizen top-sail. Ibid., Pinasse, a square-sterned vessel, called in England a bark.
1771. Phil. Trans., LXI. 422. On board the Endeavour Bark, in a Voyage round the World.
1840. Marryat, Olla Podr. (Rtldg.), 331. It was not the brig, but a bark.
1856. Kane, Arct. Expl., II. xxix. 292. A steamer and a barque passed up.
4. Comb., as † bark-man, a bargeman, a lighter-man; bark-rigged a., rigged like a barque.
1599. Hakluyt, Voy., II. I. 227. When they are laden, the Barke-Men thrust the boate with her lading into the streame.
1858. Merc. Mar. Mag., V. 243. The Ava was … barque-rigged.
