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xebec or zebec and many other spellings (ZEE-bek) - n., a small two- or three-masted vessel of the Mediterranean with mixed square and lateen rigging and long overhanging bow and stern.
A word beloved by Scrabble players and crossword-puzzle makers. Relatively cheap to make, and so commonly used for trade but also swift enough to be popular with corsairs even though they couldn't mount as many cannons as beamier ships. Used from the 1500s through the 1800s, and rigging could be all lateen or almost all square to anything in between, though almost always the mizzen sail was lateen. Here's a 1769 drawing of one that was used by Algerian pirates:
Thanks, WikiMedia!
First used in 1756 in the form chebec, from either French chabec (now chebec) or Spanish xabeque (now spelled jabeque) or Catalan xabec or Italian sciabecco, all of them from Arabic šubbāk, a small war vessel but originally fishing-net, implying it was originally a fishing vessel.
---L.
A word beloved by Scrabble players and crossword-puzzle makers. Relatively cheap to make, and so commonly used for trade but also swift enough to be popular with corsairs even though they couldn't mount as many cannons as beamier ships. Used from the 1500s through the 1800s, and rigging could be all lateen or almost all square to anything in between, though almost always the mizzen sail was lateen. Here's a 1769 drawing of one that was used by Algerian pirates:
Thanks, WikiMedia!
First used in 1756 in the form chebec, from either French chabec (now chebec) or Spanish xabeque (now spelled jabeque) or Catalan xabec or Italian sciabecco, all of them from Arabic šubbāk, a small war vessel but originally fishing-net, implying it was originally a fishing vessel.
---L.
