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quark

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also: Quark

English

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WOTD – 16 June 2025

Etymology 1

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Image
A diagram illustrating how a proton is theorized to be composed of two up quarks (indicated as “u”) and one down quark (“d”), and gluons that mediate the forces “binding” them together (wavy lines).

    Sense 1 (“subatomic particle”) was coined by the American physicist Murray Gell-Mann (1929–2019) in 1963, apparently an arbitrary word. Subsequently, in a letter dated 27 June 1978 to the editor of the Oxford English Dictionary Supplement, Gell-Mann associated the word with the sentence “Three quarks for Muster Mark!” from James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake (1939)[1] and indicated that he pronounced the word /kwɔɹk/, reasoning that the sentence referred to a call in a pub for “three quarts”. However, the context in the book indicates that quark is probably a variant of quawk (“harsh call of a bird”) and was intended by Joyce to be pronounced /kwɑːk/, the modern pronunciation.[2][3]

    Pronunciation

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    Noun

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    quark (plural quarks)

    2. (particle physics) In the Standard Model, one of a number of elementary subatomic particles having fractional electric charge that forms matter. They are theorized not to exist in isolation, but only in combinations in hadrons such as neutrons and protons or in quark–gluon plasmas.
      Synonym: (obsolete) ace
      • 1964 February 1, M[urray] Gell-Mann, “A Schematic Model of Baryons and Mesons”, in Physics Letters‎[1], volume 8, number 3, Amsterdam, North Holland: North-Holland Publishing Company, →DOI, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 23 June 2022, page 214, column 2:
        A simpler and more elegant scheme can be constructed if we allow non-integral values for the charges. We can dispense entirely with the basic baryon b if we assign to the triplet t the following properties: spin 12, z=−13, and baryon number 13. We then refer to the members u23, d−13, and s−13 of the triplet as "quarks" q and the members of the anti-triplet as anti-quarks q̄. […] A formal mathematical model based on field theory can be built up for the quarks exactly as for p, n, Λ in the old Sakata model, […]
      • 2006 December, Arnuf Quadt, “Top Quark Physics at Hadron Colliders”, in The European Physical Journal C: Particles and Fields, Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg: Springer, →DOI, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 835, column 1; republished as Douglas H. Beck, Dieter Haidt, John W[illiam] Negele, editors, Top Quark Physics at Hadron Colliders (Advances in the Physics of Particles and Nuclei; 28), Berlin; Heidelberg: Springer, 2007, →ISBN, page 1:
        There are six known quarks in nature, the up, down, strange, charm, bottom, and the top quark. The quarks are arranged in three pairs or "generations". Each member of a pair may be transformed into its partner via the charged-current weak interaction. Together with the six known leptons (the electron, muon, tau, and their associated neutrinos), the six quarks constitute all of the known luminous matter in the universe. The understanding of the properties of the quarks and leptons and their interactions is therefore of paramount importance.
      • 2012 March-April, Jeremy Bernstein, “A Palette of Particles”, in American Scientist‎[2], volume 100, number 2, New Haven, Conn.: Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 12 April 2023, page 146:
        There were also particles no one had predicted that just appeared. Five of them are of interest to me here. In order of increasing modernity, they are the neutrino, the pi meson, the antiproton, the quark and the Higgs boson. […] It fairly rapidly became clear to physicists that free quarks were not going to be found. Making a virtue out of necessity, they invented a dynamics that would permanently confine quarks within particles. In this scenario quarks exchange particles called gluons. […] There is no escape. Quarks are imprisoned forever.
    3. (by extension, computing, X Window System)
      1. An integer that uniquely identifies a text string.
        Coordinate term: atom
        • 1992, Keith D. Gregory, “Resources Revisited”, in Programming with Motif, New York, N.Y.: Springer-Verlag New York, →DOI, →ISBN, page 453:
          Two functions are provided to convert between strings and quarks: XrmStringToQuark and XrmQuarkToString […] The second takes a quark as its parameter and returns a pointer to its associated string; it is used primarily for debugging and runtime error messages.
      2. (slang) A nonsense, trivial text string.
        (Can we add an example for this sense?)
    Antonyms
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    Hyponyms
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    known quarks
    hypothetical quarks
    Derived terms
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    Translations
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    integer that uniquely identifies a text string
    nonsense, trivial text string

    Etymology 2

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    A spoonful of quark cheese served with tomato slices on a plate
    Quark cheese (noun sense 1) from Germany.

      Borrowed from German Quark (“cottage cheese; curds; curd cheese”).[4] Doublet of tvorog and twaróg.

      Pronunciation

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      Noun

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      quark (uncountable)

      2. A soft, creamy, unripened cheese made from cow's milk, originating from and eaten throughout central, northern, eastern, and southeastern Europe, as well as the Low Countries.
        Coordinate terms: tvorog, twaróg
      Translations
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      Etymology 3

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        Image
        A black-crowned night heron (Nycticorax nycticorax), known informally in the Falkland Islands as a quark.

        Onomatopoeic, from the sound of the squawk.

        Pronunciation

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        Noun

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        quark (plural quarks)

        1. (Falkland Islands, informal) The black-crowned night heron (Nycticorax nycticorax).
          Synonym: (US) quawk
        Translations
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        References

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        1. ^ James Joyce (4 May 1939), Finnegans Wake, London: Faber and Faber, →OCLC; republished London: Faber & Faber, 1960, →OCLC, part II, page 383: “― Three quarks for Muster Mark! / Sure he hasn’t got much of a bark / And sure any he has it’s all beside the mark. / […] That song sand seaswans. The winging ones. Seahawk, seagull, curlew and plover, kestrel and capercallzie.”
        2. ^ “quark, n.2”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, June 2025; “quark1, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
        3. ^ James Gleick (1992), “Caltech”, in Genius: Richard Feynman and Modern Physics, New York, N.Y.: Pantheon Books, →ISBN:
          [Murray] Gell-Mann won the linguistic battle once again: his choice, a croaking nonsense word, was quark. (After the fact, he was able to tack on a literary antecedent when he found the phrase “Three quarks for Muster Mark” in Finnegans Wake, but the physicist’s quark was pronounced from the beginning to rhyme with “cork”.)
        4. ^ “quark, n.1”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, June 2025; “quark2, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

        Further reading

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        Basque

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        Etymology

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          Unadapted borrowing from English quark.

          Pronunciation

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          • IPA(key): /kwark/ [kwark]
          • Rhymes: -ark
          • Hyphenation: quark

          Noun

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          quark inan

          1. (physics) quark

          Declension

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          Declension of quark (inan C-stem)
          indefinite singular plural proximal plural
          absolutive quark quarka quarkak quarkok
          ergative quarkek quarkak quarkek quarkok
          dative quarki quarkari quarkei quarkoi
          genitive quarken quarkaren quarken quarkon
          comitative quarkekin quarkarekin quarkekin quarkokin
          causative quarkengatik quarkarengatik quarkengatik quarkongatik
          benefactive quarkentzat quarkarentzat quarkentzat quarkontzat
          instrumental quarkez quarkaz quarkez quarkotaz
          inessive quarketan quarkean quarketan quarkotan
          locative quarketako quarkeko quarketako quarkotako
          allative quarketara quarkera quarketara quarkotara
          terminative quarketaraino quarkeraino quarketaraino quarkotaraino
          directive quarketarantz quarkerantz quarketarantz quarkotarantz
          destinative quarketarako quarkerako quarketarako quarkotarako
          ablative quarketatik quarketik quarketatik quarkotatik
          partitive quarkik — — —
          prolative quarktzat — — —

          Further reading

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          • “quark”, in Euskaltzaindiaren Hiztegia [Dictionary of the Basque Academy] (in Basque), Euskaltzaindia [Royal Academy of the Basque Language]

          Catalan

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          Etymology

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            Unadapted borrowing from English quark.

            Noun

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            quark m (plural quarks)

            1. (particle physics) quark

            Dutch

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            Dutch Wikipedia has an article on:
            Wikipedia nl

            Etymology

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              Unadapted borrowing from English quark.

              Pronunciation

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              Noun

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              quark m (plural quarks, no diminutive)

              1. (particle physics) quark

              French

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              Etymology

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                Unadapted borrowing from English quark.

                Pronunciation

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                Noun

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                quark m (plural quarks)

                1. (particle physics) quark

                Galician

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                Etymology

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                  Unadapted borrowing from English quark.

                  Noun

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                  quark m (plural quarks)

                  1. (particle physics) quark

                  Italian

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                  Etymology

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                    Unadapted borrowing from English quark.

                    Pronunciation

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                    • IPA(key): /ˈkwark/
                    • Rhymes: -ark
                    • Hyphenation: quàrk

                    Noun

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                    quark m (invariable)

                    1. (particle physics) quark

                    Derived terms

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                    Further reading

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                    • “quark”, in Vocabolario Treccani on line (in Italian), Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana, 2026

                    Portuguese

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                    Pronunciation

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                    Etymology 1

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                      Unadapted borrowing from English quark.

                      Noun

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                      quark m (plural quarks)

                      1. (particle physics) quark (an elementary subatomic particle which forms matter)

                      Etymology 2

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                        Borrowed from German Quark.

                        Noun

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                        quark m (plural quarks)

                        1. quark (soft creamy cheese)

                        Further reading

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                        Spanish

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                        Spanish Wikipedia has an article on:
                        Wikipedia es

                        Alternative forms

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                        Etymology

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                          Unadapted borrowing from English quark.

                          Pronunciation

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                          • IPA(key): /ˈkwoɾk/ [ˈkwoɾk], /ˈkwaɾk/ [ˈkwaɾk]
                          • Rhymes: -oɾk, -aɾk
                          • Syllabification: quark

                          Noun

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                          quark m (plural quarks)

                          1. quark
                            Hypernyms: fermión, partícula elemental

                          Usage notes

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                          According to Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) prescriptions, unadapted foreign words should be written in italics in a text printed in roman type, and vice versa, and in quotation marks in a manuscript text or when italics are not available. In practice, this RAE prescription is not always followed.

                          Hyponyms

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                          Further reading

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