I still have my high-school dictionary, and it has this entry: quark n. (Phys.) one of several (orig. three) hypothetical components of elementary particles.

I still have my high-school dictionary, and it has this entry: quark n. (Phys.) one of several (orig. three) hypothetical components of elementary particles. That's from the 7th edition (1982, reprinted 1984) of the Concise Oxford Dictionary, about the size of a thick hardback novel. Granted, there's not much there, but enough to prove that a student's not just making something up.