ark

plural arks

1. A large box with a flat lid.

   Then said he, "Your child is at home in the inner bedroom in a new cradle behind the ark."

   1850, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, London: H.G. Bohn, page 228

2. The ship built by Noah to save his family and a collection of animals from the deluge; Noah's ark.

   In the midrash about Noah it says that Noah had a stone which, when held up in the darkness of the ark, would change color when the sun was shining outside.

   1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 201

3. Something affording protection; safety, shelter, refuge.

   the Ark of Bukhara

4. figurativelyThe body as a vessel.

   Like her I go; I cannot stay; ⁠I leave this mortal ark behind, A weight of nerves without a mind, And leave the cliffs, and haste away […]

   1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto XII”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC

5. A spacious type of boat with a flat bottom.

   Some seventy or seventy-five arks were permanently located on McLeod's Lake and between 110 and 125 people lived in them.

   1990, Lou Sullivan, chapter 7, in From Female to Male: The Life of Jack Bee Garland, page 76

6. JudaismThe Ark of the Covenant.
7. JudaismA decorated cabinet at the front of a synagogue, in which Torah scrolls are kept.

1. biblicalThe boat built by the Biblical Noah to carry himself and the animals of the planet during the Flood.
2. biblicalThe chest carried by the Hebrews containing the stone tablets carved with the Ten Commandments.