xebec also xebeque, jabeque, sciabecco, chebeck A small, fast three-masted (originally two-masted) vessel with a shallow draft and a distinctive overhanging BOW and STERN. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, a large xebec carried a square RIG on the FOREMAST, LATEEN sails on the others, a BOWSPRIT, and two HEADSAILS. It was frequently used in the Mediterranean by CORSAIRS, carrying a crew of up to 400 men and mounting up to 24 guns. See illustrations, below and on page 57.
A xebec with a view of the lighthouse on the mole at Naples (from Serres’s Liber Nauticus)