An alternative or dialectal form referring to a large merchant ship, also spelled 'carrack,' used in medieval and early modern maritime trade.
Variant spelling of 'carrack,' from Portuguese caraca or Spanish carraca, possibly from Arabic qurqur meaning 'to crack' (referring to the creaking sound of wooden ships).
Characs were the container ships of the Renaissance—massive, slow, heavily laden with spices and silks, and so valuable that their loss could bankrupt trading companies, making them central to the early modern global economy.
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