Home › Glossary › Letter B

bark

Nautical
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A small sailing vessel; in nautical usage, “bark” may also mean a barque, a ship typically square-rigged on all but its aft mast.

Detailed Definition
In nautical usage, bark means a sailing vessel, often with three masts. Holmes uses it for the nautilus as a ship-like creature, extending the poem’s sea imagery.
Example
Example in poetry:
“The venturous bark that flings / On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings” uses bark as a small sailing vessel; Shakespeare’s “barks” often stand for ships exposed to fortune and storm; in Tennyson’s “Ulysses,” the vessel becomes an emblem of continuing voyage; contemporary sea poetry can make a bark represent migration, commerce, fragility, or the desire to depart
Additional Notes
In the quoted line, bark is a specialized nautical word, not the everyday meaning of tree bark.; Found in the poem, The Chambered Nautilus by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Also Known As
tree bark rind outer layer covering Barque
Skip to main content