Define quark: below is a dictionary-style breakdown of the word, with the common meanings listed one by one.
quark (noun)
- Physics. An elementary particle that carries an electric charge of two thirds or minus one third of the basic unit. Quarks combine to form hadrons, including protons and neutrons. There are six types: up, down, charm, strange, top and bottom. Quarks are held together by the strong force and are not seen alone.
- Food. A soft, fresh, unripened cheese made by souring milk and draining the curds. It is common in German-speaking countries and elsewhere in Europe.
- Informal, German. Nonsense or rubbish, as in the phrase “that is Quark”.
Quark as a name
- A Ferengi character in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
- A polar expedition travel company.
- A Minecraft mod.
- A page-layout software product.
Word origin, in brief
In the particle sense, the word was introduced in 1964 by Murray Gell-Mann, and he linked it to a line in James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. The cheese word comes from German and is related to similar words in Slavic languages.
Examples in a sentence
- “A proton contains two up quarks and one down quark.”
- “She spread quark on her toast with some chives.”
- “Is quark a valid word in Wordle?”
Related words
Proton, neutron, gluon, hadron, antiquark, flavour.
See also: quark def, the short version and quark meaning and origin. Back to the home page