ark
nounUK /ɑːk/ · CA, US /ɑɹk/
Etymology From Middle English arke, from Old English earc, ærc, from Latin arca (“chest, box, coffer”), from arceō (“to enclose”).
7 senses
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
Figuratively The 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
Judaism The Ark of the Covenant.
7
Judaism A decorated cabinet at the front of a synagogue, in which Torah scrolls are kept.
- Derived terms
- ark clam, ark-floater, arkful, arklike, ark load, arkload, Ark of the Covenant, ark shell, ark storm, arkwright, go out with the ark, Noah's ark, Noah's Ark, out of the ark, pig ark