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quark.

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.

5 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/kwɑːk/Received-Pronunciation/kwɑɹk/General-American/kwɔɹk/dated
  1. 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.

    particle
  2. An integer that uniquely identifies a text string.

    broadly
  3. A nonsense, trivial text string.

    broadly · slang
Where this word comes from

Etymology 1 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) 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.

noun/kwɑːk/Received-Pronunciation/kvɑːk//kwɑɹk/General-American
  1. 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.

    uncountable
Where this word comes from

[Alt: A spoonful of quark cheese served with tomato slices on a plate] Borrowed from German Quark (“cottage cheese; curds; curd cheese”). Doublet of tvorog and twaróg.

noun/kwɑːk/Received-Pronunciation/kwɑɹk/General-American
  1. The black-crowned night heron (Nycticorax nycticorax).

    informal
Where this word comes from

Onomatopoeic, from the sound of the squawk.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.