[a. Pg. lorcha (occurring in Pinto, 1540: see Yule and Burnell); of uncertain origin.] A fast sailing vessel built in China with the hull after a European model, but rigged in Chinese fashion, usually carrying guns.
1653. H. Cogan, trans. Pinto’s Trav., xv. (1663), 49. They entred our Lorch where most conveniently they could.
1857. Cobden, Speeches (1878), 370. A vessel called a lorcha—which is a name derived from the Portuguese settlement at Macao, and which merely means that it is built after the European model not that it is built in Europe.
1896. Gen. Register of Shipping, 2 Sept., Abbreviations … Lor., Lorcha.
