quark English · revision 784

+ ==Pronunciation==

+ * IPA: /kwɑːk/, /kwɑɹk/^(Wiktionary)

+

+ ==Etymology==

+ Coined in 1964 by the American physicist Murray Gell-Mann,^(Etymonline)^(MW Collegiate)^(Cresswell 2021) who told the OED in 1978 that he took it from the line “Three quarks for Muster Mark!” in James Joyce's ''Finnegans Wake'' (1939),^(Etymonline)^(Hendrickson 2008)^(AHD)^(Cresswell 2021) though the sound of the word had been in his head before he saw it in print.^(Etymonline) He had at first spelled it ''quork''.^(Cresswell 2021) Joyce's ''quark'' suggests the cawing of a bird, from the verb ''quark'' “to croak” (1860).^(AHD)^(Cresswell 2021)^(OED 1989) German ''Quark'' “curds, rubbish” has also been proposed as an inspiration.^(Barnhart 1995)^(Etymonline)

+

+ The cheese is a separate word, [[bor|de|Quark]], from Middle High German ''quarc'', of Slavic origin.^(AHD)^(Etymonline)

+

+ ==Earliest recorded meaning==

+ A hypothetical subatomic particle with a fractional electric charge (1964).^(OED 1989)^(Barnhart 1995)^(Etymonline)^(MW Collegiate)

+

+ ==Semantic evolution==

+ The word appealed to Gell-Mann because only three kinds of quark, now called ''up'', ''down'' and ''strange'', were then thought to exist, matching Joyce's “three quarks”.^(Cresswell 2021)^(Barnhart 1995) Later physics added further “flavours”, ''charm'', ''bottom'' and ''top'', and the property called “colour”.^(RHWU) Gell-Mann's co-proposer George Zweig is said to have preferred the name ''ace''.^(Etymonline) Gell-Mann rhymed the word with ''cork'', while Joyce's rhymes with ''Mark''.^(Hendrickson 2008)

+

+ ==Timeline==

+ * 1860 – ''quark'', verb, to croak.^(OED 1989)

+ * 1931 – ''quark'', a soft German cheese.^(OED 1989)

+ * 1939 – “Three quarks for Muster Mark!” (Joyce).^(Etymonline)^(Cresswell 2021)

+ * 1964 – the subatomic particle.^(OED 1989)^(Barnhart 1995)^(Etymonline)^(MW Collegiate)

+

+ ==Modern meaning==

+ ===Noun===

+ # ''(physics)'' Any of a group of [[elementary particle|alt=elementary particles]] with an electric charge of one-third or two-thirds that of the electron, held to be the constituents of all [[hadron|alt=hadrons]], such as protons and neutrons.^(AHD)^(MW Collegiate)^(RHWU)^(Wiktionary)

+ # A soft, creamy, unripened cheese of central Europe.^(AHD)^(OED 1989)^(Wiktionary)

+

+ ==Word family==

+ * [[quarkonium]]

+ * [[quark model]]

+

+ ==Related words==

+ * [[hadron]]

+ * [[lepton]]

+ * [[boson]]

+ * [[antiquark]]

+

+ ==References==

+ {{reflist}}