quark
noun/kwɑːk/
/kwɑːrk/, /kwɔːrk/
- [countable] (physics) a very small part of matter (= a substance). There are several types of quark and it is thought that protons, neutrons, etc. are formed from them.Topics Physics and chemistryc2
Want to learn more?
Find out which words work together and produce more natural sounding English with the Oxford Collocations Dictionary app.
- [uncountable] a type of soft cheese from central Europe, similar to curd cheeseTopics Foodc2
Word Origin1960s: a word invented by Murray Gell-Mann, the American theoretical physicist. Originally quork, the term was changed by association with the line “Three quarks for Muster Mark” in Joyce's Finnegans Wake (1939).
Check pronunciation:
quark