ark

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noun

ˈärk

: a boat or ship held to resemble that in which Noah and his family were preserved from the Flood

: something that affords protection and safety

: the sacred chest representing to the Hebrews the presence of God among them

: a repository traditionally in or against the wall of a synagogue for the scrolls of the Torah

Ark

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Examples of ark in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Noun

Ultimate SoCal college football sports bar guide: Find out where to watch your team Sept. 1, 2023 Advertisement When the top college football programs inevitably split off, Stanford and Cal won’t be on that ark. —

J. Brady McCollough, Los Angeles Times, 1 Sep. 2023 During the course of the docu, produced by Sandbox Films, a wooden ark is constructed on Cheney’s parent’s property in Maine. —

Addie Morfoot, Variety, 8 Aug. 2023 America becomes object: a proverbial impossibility, both the flood and the ark. —

New York Times, 2 Nov. 2023 The menorahs of my childhood were whimsical—Noah’s ark with a tall giraffe at the center, children locking arms. —

Bellamy Richardson, wsj.com, 29 Sep. 2023 Set against the backdrop of the filmmaker’s quixotic quest to build an ark in a field in Maine, the film heads far afield to illuminate the strange world of archives, record-keeping, and memory. —

Addie Morfoot, Variety, 22 Aug. 2023 Party-planning guru Bronson van Wyck, for his part, recommends busting out of the red-and-green paradigm, and has decked out his client’s trees with outré motifs ranging from crustaceans to Noah’s ark. —

Anna Fixsen, ELLE Decor, 18 Aug. 2023 His mini-spaceship is even like the little ark that carried Moses down the River Nile. —

Jay Michaelson, Rolling Stone, 28 June 2023 Fragments from these genetically distinct coral types would be placed in land tanks in Sarasota and West Palm Beach that serve as modern-day arks for the vulnerable sea creatures. —

Jenny Jarvie, Los Angeles Times, 1 Aug. 2023 See More

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'ark.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Etymology

Noun

Middle English ark, arke, arche "chest, box, coffer, the ark of Jewish history, Noah's ark," going back to Old English arc, earc, erce, earce, going back to Germanic *arkō (whence also Old Frisian erke "chest, trunk," arke "Noah's ark," Middle Dutch arke, Old High German arka, arha "chest, box," Old Icelandic ǫrk "chest, sarcophagus, Noah's ark," Gothic arka "chest, money box"), borrowed from Latin arca "chest, coffer, box, coffin," noun derivative from the base of arcēre "to hold in, prevent from approaching, keep away," going back to Indo-European *h₂erḱ- "hold, contain," whence also Greek arkeîn "to hold off, repel, provide protection, assist, suffice" (probably as verbal derivative of árkos "defense"), Hittite ḫark- "hold, keep, have"

Note: Also hypothesized as nominal derivatives of *h₂erḱ-, with somewhat less probability, are Old High German rigil "bolt of a door" (< *h₂reḱ-l-?), Lithuanian rãktas "key," rakìnti "to lock," and Armenian argel "hindrance, obstacle, ward, prison" (< *h₂rḱ- plus a suffix?). The lack of a palatovelar reflex in Lithuanian and Armenian would have to be explained, perhaps by positing a plain velar.