History of the term
The word barc appears to have come from the Greek word baris, a term for an Egyptian boat. This entered Latin as barca, which gave rise to the Italian barca, Spanish barco, and the French barge and barque. In both Latin and Italian the term barca refers to a small boat, not a full-size ship. French influence in England led to the use in English of both words, although their meanings now are not the same. Well before the nineteenth century a barge had become interpreted as a small vessel of coastal or inland waters. Somewhat later, a bark became a sailing vessel of a distinctive rig as detailed below. In Britain, by the mid-nineteenth century, the spelling had taken on the French form of barque. Throughout the period of sail, the word was used also as a shortening of the barca-longa of the Mediterranean Sea. The usual convention is that spelling barque refers to a ship and bark to tree hide, to distinguish the homophones. See also Barque of Peter (ship as an image/symbol of the Catholic Church) for religious usage of the term. Bark (ship)
In the eighteenth century, the British Royal Navy used the term bark for a nondescript vessel that did not fit any of its usual categories. Thus, when the British Admiralty purchased a collier for use by James Cook in his journey of exploration, she was registered as HM Bark Endeavour to distinguish her from another Endeavour, a sloop already in service at the time. She happened to be a ship-rigged sailing vessel with a plain bluff bow and a full stern with windows.
