Junk (ship) - Etymology

Etymology

The term ultimately stems from the Chinese chuán (船, "boat; ship"), also based on and pronounced as (Pe̍h-ōe-jī: chûn) in the Min Nan variant of Chinese, or zhōu (舟), the old word for a sailing vessel. It entered the English language in the 17th century through the Portuguese junco from the Javanese djong. The modern Standard Chinese word for an ocean-going vessel is cáo (艚).

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