quark

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]

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: kwäk, IPA^(key): /kwɑːk/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (General American) enPR: kwärk, IPA^(key): /kwɑɹk/, (dated) enPR: kwôrk, IPA^(key): /kwɔɹk/

• Audio (General American):

  (file)

• Audio (General American):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɑː(ɹ)k, -ɔː(ɹ)k

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 ${\textstyle {\frac {1}{2}}}$, ${\textstyle z={-{\frac {1}{3}}}}$, and baryon number ${\textstyle {\frac {1}{3}}}$. We then refer to the members ${\textstyle u^{\frac {2}{3}}}$, ${\textstyle d^{-{\frac {1}{3}}}}$, and ${\textstyle s^{-{\frac {1}{3}}}}$ 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?)

Borrowed from German Quark (“cottage cheese; curds; curd cheese”), from late Middle High German twarc, from a West Slavic language, possibly Lower Sorbian twarog^[4] (compare Polish twaróg), from Proto-Slavic *tvarogъ (“quark”), probably related to *tvorìti (“to make”), from Proto-Indo-European *twerH- (“to enclose, fence in; to grab, seize”). Doublet of tvorog.

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: kwäk, IPA^(key): /kwɑːk/, (reproducing the German pronunciation) enPR: kväk, IPA^(key): /kvɑːk/

• Audio (Southern England); /kwɑːk/:

  (file)

• (General American) enPR: kwärk, IPA^(key): /kwɑɹk/

• Audio (General American):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɑː(ɹ)k

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 term: tvorog

Onomatopoeic, from the sound of the squawk.

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: kwäk, IPA^(key): /kwɑːk/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (General American) enPR: kwärk, IPA^(key): /kwɑɹk/

• Audio (General American):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɑː(ɹ)k

quark (plural quarks)

1. (Falkland Islands, informal) The black-crowned night heron (Nycticorax nycticorax).

   Synonym: (US) quawk

• quark on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• quark (dairy product) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• quark (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Unadapted borrowing from English quark.

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

quark inan

1. (physics) quark

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

Unadapted borrowing from English quark.

quark m (plural quarks)

1. (particle physics) quark

Unadapted borrowing from English quark.

• Audio:

  (file)

• Homophone: kwark

quark m (plural quarks)

1. (particle physics) quark

Unadapted borrowing from English quark.

• IPA^(key): /kwaʁk/

• Audio (Paris):

  (file)

quark m (plural quarks)

1. (particle physics) quark

Unadapted borrowing from English quark.

quark m (plural quarks)

1. (particle physics) quark

Unadapted borrowing from English quark.

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

quark m (invariable)

1. (particle physics) quark

• quarkonio

• quark in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana

Unadapted borrowing from English quark.

quark m (plural quarks)

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

Borrowed from German Quark.

quark m (plural quarks)

1. quark (soft creamy cheese)

• “quark”, in Dicionário Aulete Digital (in Portuguese), Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon Editora Digital, 2008–2025
• “quark”, in Dicio – Dicionário Online de Português (in Portuguese), São Paulo: 7Graus, 2009–2025
• “quark”, in Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Lisboa: Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, 2001–2025
• “quark”, in Dicionário infopédia da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Porto: Porto Editora, 2003–2025
• “quark”, in Michaelis Dicionário Brasileiro da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), São Paulo: Editora Melhoramentos, 2015–2025
• “quark”, in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Lisbon: Priberam, 2008–2025

• cuark, cuarc

Unadapted borrowing from English quark.

• IPA^(key): /ˈkwaɾk/ [ˈkwaɾk]
• Rhymes: -aɾk
• Syllabification: quark

quark m (plural quarks)

1. quark

   Hypernyms: fermión, partícula elemental

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.

• quarks: quark: quark arriba · quark abajo · quark encantado · quark extraño · quark cima · quark fondo ^[edit]

• “quark”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 10 December 2024