quark

[kwawrk, kwahrk] /kwɔrk, kwɑrk/
noun
1.
Physics. any of the hypothetical particles with spin 1/2, baryon number 1/3, and electric charge 1/3 or −2/3 that, together with their antiparticles, are believed to constitute all the elementary particles classed as baryons and mesons; they are distinguished by their flavors, designated as up (u), down (d), strange (s), charm (c), bottom or beauty (b), and top or truth (t), and their colors, red, green, and blue.
Compare color (def 18), flavor (def 5), quantum chromodynamics, quark model.
Origin
coined in 1963 by U.S. physicist Murray Gell-Mann (born 1929), who associated it with a word in Joyce's Finnegans Wake, read variously as English quark croak and German Quark curd, (slang) rubbish, tripe
Can be confused
quark, quirk.
Examples from the web for quarks
  • Henry, a physicist, explained how quarks were discovered.
  • quarks are the elementary building blocks of positively charged protons and neutral neutrons, which make up atomic cores.
  • The studies focus on the top quark, the heaviest of the six quarks, which are the fundamental building blocks of nature.
  • Baryons are particles formed of three quarks, in different configurations.
  • Information flows everywhere, through wires and genes, through brain cells and quarks.
  • String theory suggests that matter can be broken down beyond electrons and quarks into tiny loops of vibrating strings.
  • More precisely, each proton-proton collision involves a handful of quarks and gluons.
  • Unfortunately hadrons, such as protons and antiprotons, are made of smaller bits called quarks.
  • It's not too difficult to be objective about quarks in physics because they don't impact our daily lives.
  • The up and down quarks then decay into jets, shortly followed by the bottom quarks that go the same way.
British Dictionary definitions for quarks

quark1

/kwɑːk/
noun
1.
(physics) any of a set of six hypothetical elementary particles together with their antiparticles thought to be fundamental units of all baryons and mesons but unable to exist in isolation. The magnitude of their charge is either two thirds or one third of that of the electron
Word Origin
C20: coined by James Joyce in the novel Finnegans Wake, and given special application in physics

quark2

/kwɑːk/
noun
1.
a type of low-fat soft cheese
Word Origin
from German
Word Origin and History for quarks

quark

n.

1964, applied by U.S. physicist Murray Gell-Mann (b.1929), who said in correspondence with the editors of the OED in 1978 that he took it from a word in James Joyce's "Finnegans Wake" (1939), but also that the sound of the word was in his head before he encountered the printed form in Joyce. German Quark "curds, rubbish" has been proposed as the ultimate inspiration [Barnhart; Gell-Mann's parents were immigrants from Austria-Hungary]. George Zweig, Gell-Mann's co-proposer of the theory, is said to have preferred the name ace for them.

quarks in Science
quark
  (kwôrk, kwärk)   
Any of a group of elementary particles supposed to be the fundamental units that combine to make up the subatomic particles known as hadrons (baryons, such as neutrons and protons, and mesons). There are six different flavors (or types) of quark: up quark, down quark, top quark, bottom quark, charm quark, and strange quark. Quarks have fractional electric charges, such as 1/3 the charge of an electron. See Note at elementary particle. See Table at subatomic particle.
quarks in Culture
quarks [(kwahrks, kwawrks)]

In physics, the elementary particles that make up the protons and neutrons that in turn make up the atomic nucleus. Quarks are the most basic known constituent of matter. (See antimatter.)

Note: No quarks have been seen in the laboratory because, according to current theory, they cannot exist as free particles.