Politics & SocietyGreek → English
Caravel
/ˈkærəvɛl/noun
A small fast sailing ship with lateen sails, used by Portuguese and Spanish explorers.
The Greek roots
κάραβος
kárabos
crayfish; light boat
Literally: “crayfish, small light vessel”
Follow a root:κάραβος1 word
The story of the word
The line runs from Portuguese caravela back through Late Latin carabus, a light boat of wicker and hide, to Greek κάραβος, which named both a crayfish and a small vessel. Whether the boat was named after the shellfish or the two words merely converged is not settled. Either way, the ships that felt their way down the African coast in the fifteenth century carry the name of a crustacean.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Late Latin → Portuguese → English
- First recorded
- 1520s
In a sentence
Two caravels and a larger carrack made up the whole expedition.