carrack

plural carracks · alternative carack · alternative carrick · alternative carract

1. historicalA large European sailing vessel of the 14th to 17th centuries similar to a caravel but square-rigged on the foremast and mainmast and lateen-rigged on the mizzenmast.

   Faith, he to night hath boarded a Land Carract, / If it proue lawfull prize, he's made for euer.

   c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii], page 312

   3 more examples

   They [the English] are all on fire / To purchaſe from the Spaniard. If their Carracks / Come deeply laden, vvee ſhall tugge vvith them / For golden ſpoile.

   c. 1597–1603 (date written), Thomas Heywood, The Fair Maid of the West. Or, A Girle Worth Gold. The First Part. […], London: […] [Miles Flesher] for Richard Royston, […], published 1631, →OCLC, Act I, page 1

   The name of the ship was Dawn Treader. She was only a little bit of a thing compared with one of our ships, or even with the cogs, dromonds, carracks and galleons which Narnia had owned when Lucy and Edmund had reigned there under Peter as the High King, for nearly all navigation had died out in the reigns of Caspian's ancestors.

   1952, C. S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

   Thereafter huge sailing carracks brought Indian pepper and cotton, Indonesian perfume and spice, Chinese silk and porcelain, to the royal trading house at Lisbon.

   1993, David Birmingham, A Concise History of Portugal, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 28

   Synonyms: nau

1. alternativeAlternative form of Kharg