A large sailing ship with three or more masts where the front masts are square-rigged (carrying horizontal sails) and the back mast uses fore-and-aft sails, commonly used for ocean cargo transport.
From Old French 'barque' or Spanish 'barca,' derived from Latin 'barca' (boat). The term came into English from Mediterranean maritime vocabulary around the 15th century and became the standard name for this specific ship design.
Barques were the workhorse ships of international trade for 200 years—Charles Darwin sailed around the world on the HMS Beagle (a barque-rigged ship) in 1831, and some are still sailing as training vessels and museums today!
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