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

See Examples For:

xebec

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

S in was; c in suffice; and x in xebec.

From 1001 Questions and Answers on Orthography and Reading by B. A. Hathaway

I fancy the xebec is the fastest, sir.

From Held Fast For England A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) by G. A. (George Alfred) Henty

And some may sing of the galley-foist, and some of the quadrireme, And some of the day the xebec came and hit us abaft the beam.

From Something Else Again by Franklin P. (Franklin Pierce) Adams

On the Barbary coast the xebec rig was deemed to vary from the felucca, which in hull is the same, by having the fore-mast square-rigged.

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 Sir Edward Belcher