carrack

American  

[kar-uhk] / ˈkær ək /

Or carack

noun

1. a merchant vessel having various rigs, used especially by Mediterranean countries in the 15th and 16th centuries; galleon.

---

carrack British  

/ ˈkærək /

noun

1. a galleon sailed in the Mediterranean as a merchantman in the 15th and 16th centuries

---

Etymology

Origin of carrack

1350–1400; Middle English carrake < Middle French carraque < Spanish carraca, perhaps back formation from Arabic qarāqīr (plural of qurqūr ship of burden < Greek kérkouros ), the -īr being taken as plural ending

Example Sentences

When they disembarked from the leaky, fetid carrack, they stepped foot on a land already cleared by death’s scythe.

From Washington Times • Sep. 22, 2020

Sixteen years later, a priest and a single-minded evangelist, he left Lisbon on a Portuguese carrack to found the Jesuit missions in Asia.

From Time Magazine Archive

In 1509, Bluff King Hal named the 130-ft., 700-ton, four-masted carrack, which became the vice flagship of his royal fleet, Mary Rose, after his favorite sister.

From Time Magazine Archive

It was a carrack, that type of vessel with high structures called “castles” in its bow and stern and a low expanse of decking in the middle.

From "Shipwrecked!" by Martin W. Sandler

A merchant ship or carrack of burden, principally of the Levant; the name is by some derived from Ragusa, but by others with more probability from the Argo.

From The Sailor's Word-Book An Alphabetical Digest of Nautical Terms, including Some More Especially Military and Scientific, but Useful to Seamen; as well as Archaisms of Early Voyagers, etc. by Belcher, Edward, Sir