Etymology: < Old French barge (= Provençal barga , c1180, medieval Latin barga ), of which the Latin type might be either barga or *bārica . Diez favours the latter, taking it as a possible derivative of Latin bāris , Greek βᾶρις , a kind of boat used on the Nile, an Egyptian word (Coptic barí a little pleasure-boat); but there is no evidence that this word was ever used in the West. As to barga see bark n.²If barge was, as seems certain, the same as barca , bark n.², it was originally a ship's boat, used as a lighter, etc.; in Old French, 13th cent., we still find ‘la barge de la nef’ (Littré): compare senses 2 – 4. But, as with barca , the name was extended to a boat or small ship with sails; and this was the first use in English: see sense 1. After the introduction (by Caxton) of barque, barke from 15th cent. French, that word took the place of barge, which, after 1600, is found in the sense of ‘ship’ only in translators or historians. The modern senses revert more nearly to that of the original barca.

Etymology: Origin unknown. Perhaps compare bargham n.

Etymology: < barge v.²

Etymology: < barge n.¹

Etymology: ? Back-formation < bargee n., as if ‘to use the language of a bargee’.