Ark

How to spell ark

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce ark

What does ark mean?

1. nounA sacred chest, especially the Ark of the Covenant that held the tablets of the law.

Ark in a sentence

• The priests carried the ark of the covenant into the temple.

• The film treated the lost ark as a powerful religious relic.

Where does ark come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Ark comes from the Old English 'arc' or 'earc', which was an early borrowing from the Latin 'arca', meaning a chest, box, or coffer in which valuables were locked away. That Latin noun is linked to the verb 'arcere', meaning 'to shut up' or 'to keep safe', so the original idea was simply a strong container that guarded its contents. When early English Bibles were written, the same word was used both for the great vessel that Noah built to preserve life from the flood and for the sacred chest known as the Ark of the Covenant, since both were thought of as protective boxes. The spelling settled on 'ark' rather than the Latin 'arca' as the word became thoroughly naturalised in English. Its sound is identical to 'arc', a geometric curve from a completely different Latin root meaning 'bow', which is the spelling trap to watch.

How the word is built

• ark (from Latin arca: chest, box)

Words that sound like ark

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• arc: A curved line, or a portion of the circumference of a circle.