xebec

American  

[zee-bek] / ˈzi bɛk /

Also zebeck.

noun

1. a small, three-masted vessel of the Mediterranean, formerly much used by corsairs, now employed to some extent in commerce.

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xebec British  

/ ˈziːbɛk /

noun

1. a small three-masted Mediterranean vessel with both square and lateen sails, formerly used by Algerian pirates and later used for commerce

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Etymology

Origin of xebec

1750–60; alteration of earlier chebec < French < Catalan xabec or Spanish xabeque (now jabeque ), both < Arabic shabbāk

Example Sentences

By page 300 Haiti is left far behind; Albion and Lydia languish as prisoners aboard a Tripolitan xebec manned by ruffians in green turbans, and Lear has become U.S.

From Time Magazine Archive

Also, a name for the beak of a xebec or felucca.

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

While it lasted, no boat could push out from the xebec without our perceiving it.

From Sir John Constantine Memoirs of His Adventures At Home and Abroad and Particularly in the Island of Corsica: Beginning with the Year 1756 by Quiller-Couch, Arthur Thomas, Sir

Now there was a Spanish warship lying in the port, of the kind called a xebec, a sort of three-masted vessel common in the Mediterranean Sea.

From Stories of Our Naval Heroes Every Child Can Read by Hurlbut, Jesse Lyman

The boat took in a dozen or so, and then, being dangerously overcrowded, left the rest to their fate, and headed back for the xebec.

From Sir John Constantine Memoirs of His Adventures At Home and Abroad and Particularly in the Island of Corsica: Beginning with the Year 1756 by Quiller-Couch, Arthur Thomas, Sir