The Hebrew word tebah names the vessel Noah built for the Flood in Genesis.
In the Hebrew text of Genesis, the ark is called a tebah. The term is commonly translated as “ark,” but it more generally suggests a box or chest rather than the ordinary Hebrew word for a seagoing ship. This helps explain why translations retain the traditional word while describing a vessel built to preserve life.
Tebah appears in another famous biblical story: Exodus uses the same word for the basket in which the infant Moses is placed among the reeds. The shared term creates a linguistic link between two stories in which a vulnerable person is protected from threatening water.
The word should not be confused with Torah, the Hebrew term associated with teaching or law, or mishkan, the Tabernacle. Those terms belong to different objects and contexts. “Ark” in Noah’s story is a translation convention, not the original Hebrew noun.