/ kwɑːk; NAmE kwɑːrk/ noun
( physics ) a very small part of matter (= a substance). There are several types of quark and it is thought that protons , neutrons , etc. are formed from them.
••
WORD ORIGIN
1960s: a word invented by Murray Gell-Mann, the American theoretical physicist. Originally quork , the term was changed by association with the line “Three quarks for Muster Mark” in Joyce's Finnegans Wake (1939).