What does xebec mean?
The xebec is a small sailing vessel associated with the Mediterranean and particularly with early modern maritime trade. Its best-known form has three masts, each carrying a lateen sail: a triangular sail set on a long yard. This rig allowed vessels to sail efficiently across changing winds, and xebecs appear in accounts of commerce, piracy, naval activity, and travel around the Mediterranean. Today the word survives mainly in history books, historical fiction, nautical writing, and descriptions or captions of old paintings and ship models. Although related Mediterranean craft include feluccas, tartans, settees, and polacres, “xebec” is not a general term for any small sailing boat. The term has a scholarly, antiquarian flavor and immediately evokes a world of coastal trading, square-rigged merchant shipping, and nimble lateen-rigged vessels. It is therefore especially useful to readers interested in maritime history and the vocabulary of traditional sailing craft.
nounA small Mediterranean sailing vessel, especially one with three masts carrying lateen sails.
- A small Mediterranean sailing vessel, especially one with three masts carrying lateen sails.
"The harbour painting depicts a xebec gliding across the water with its lateen sails taut in the wind."
"Historians identified the vessel in the engraving as a three-masted xebec."
"The novel describes the crew loading cargo onto a xebec before dawn."
The regular plural is xebecs, though the word itself is uncommon in modern general usage.
"The museum has restored several models of xebecs."
A xebec's triangular lateen sails give it a distinctive silhouette in old Mediterranean paintings.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of xebec
English borrowed the word through French xebec, from Spanish jabeque. The Spanish term is generally traced to Arabic šabaka, although the precise historical relationship between the Arabic vocabulary for nets and the ship terminology has been debated. The alternative form chebec preserves another older French and English spelling derived from the same source.
How xebec is actually used
The word is uncommon outside historical, literary, and nautical contexts. Its use is mainly associated with the Mediterranean sailing tradition, and a more specific historical term is usually preferable when the vessel's exact rig is known.
Easily confused with xebec
Chebec is an alternative spelling used in older English for the same type of sailing vessel, not a separate kind of craft.