''embark'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

↩ 🔳 🔳 🔳

---

Primary

⁀➴

''embark'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260823000902-00-⌔

embark - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Verb

embark (third-person singular simple present embarks, present participle embarking, simple past and past participle embarked)

• To go aboard a craft or vessel for transportation.
  • ✤ All passengers please embark now.
  • ✤ [S]ee them embarqued;/And tell me if the VVinds and Seas befriend them.¹
  • ✤ It is never possible to settle down to the ordinary routine of life at sea until the screw begins to revolve. There is an hour or two, after the passengers have embarked, which is disquieting and fussy.²
• To start, begin.
  • ✤ Phil embarked on his journey yesterday.
  • ✤ “This is uncommonly nice of you, Nora,” he said, before she had had the chance to embark on any explanation; […]³
• (transitive) To cause to go on board a vessel or boat; to put on shipboard.
• (transitive) To engage, enlist, or invest (as persons, money, etc.) in any affair.
  • ✤ He embarked his fortune in trade.
  • ✤ It was the reputation of the sect upon which St. Paul embarked his salvation.⁴
  • ✤ Nor seek to get his patron’s favour, by embarking himself in the factions of the family; to enquire after domestic simulties, their sports or affections.⁵

Verb

embark (third-person singular simple present embarks, present participle embarking, simple past and past participle embarked)

• (transitive) To cover or enclose with bark.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ɪmˈbɑːk/, /ɛmˈbɑːk/
  • Audio (Southern England): 🔊
• (General American) IPA: /ɪmˈbɑɹk/, /ɛmˈbɑɹk/
• Rhymes: -ɑː(ɹ)k
• Hyphenation: em‧bark

Etymology 1

Borrowed from Middle French embarquer, from em- + barque (“small ship”). Compare with Portuguese embarcar, Spanish abarcar.

Etymology 2

From em- + bark.

Printed 2026-08-23.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

1. 1712 (date written), [Joseph] Addison, Cato, a Tragedy. […], London: […] J[acob] Tonson, […], published 1713, →OCLC, Act V, scene i, page 58: ↩

2. 1915, G[eorge] A. Birmingham [pseudonym; James Owen Hannay], chapter I, in Gossamer, New York, N.Y.: George H. Doran Company, →OCLC: ↩

3. 1934, Ernest Bramah, The Bravo of London: ↩

4. 1692–1717, Robert South, Twelve Sermons Preached upon Several Occasions, volume, London: ↩

5. 1641, Ben Jonson, Discoveries Made upon Men and Matter ‎${}^{[1]}$: ↩

Link to original

Secondary

• • •

---