Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A fore-and-aft rigged sailing vessel having at least two masts, with a foremast that is usually smaller than the other masts.
- n. A large beer glass, generally holding a pint or more.
- n. A prairie schooner.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A fore-and-aft rigged vessel, formerly with only two masts, but now often with three, and sometimes with four or five. Schooners lie nearer the wind than square-rigged vessels, are more easily handled, and require much smaller crews; hence their general use as coasters and yachts. See also cut under
pilot-boat . - n. A covered emigrant-wagon formerly used on the prairies. See prairie-schooner.
- n. A tall glass used for liquor, especially lager-beer, and supposed to hold more than an ordinary beer-glass.
Wiktionary
- n. nautical A sailing ship with two or more masts, all with fore-and-aft sails; if two masted, having a foremast and a mainmast.
- n. Australia A glass of beer, of a size which varies between states (Wikipedia).
- n. US A large goblet or drinking glass, used for lager or ale (Wikipedia).
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Naut.) Originally, a small, sharp-built vessel, with two masts and fore-and-aft rig. Sometimes it carried square topsails on one or both masts and was called a topsail schooner. About 1840, longer vessels with three masts, fore-and-aft rigged, came into use, and since that time vessels with four masts and even with six masts, so rigged, are built. Schooners with more than two masts are designated
three-masted schooners ,four-masted schooners , etc. SeeIllustration in Appendix. - n. U.S. A large goblet or drinking glass, -- used for lager beer or ale.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a large beer glass
- n. sailing vessel used in former times
Etymologies
- Origin unknown. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Well, "-- she shrugged her shoulders --" the schooner is at the bottom of the sea.”
“With the aid of a single soldier, by patching together all the three, after eighteen days, he constructed a boat, forty feet in length, and six in breadth, which he termed the schooner Joliba.”
“The 100-year-old schooner is the floating home to the scientists and artists of the Cape Farewell project as we move down the west coast of Spitsbergen on our three-week venture.”
The Huffington Post: Beth Kapusta: DJ Spooky at Monaco Glacier
“The schooner is "in the water in working condition" but still needs repairs, said the group's intern, David T. McCourt, who recently returned from El Salvador, where the boat is docked awaiting repairs.”
The Washington Post: Pearl Coalition aims to tell story of slave revolt, schooner's impact
“It turns out that the schooner is Russian from Varna, and is called the Demeter.”
“The patrol connects at Fort Ross with a motor schooner from the Western Arctic and with the exchange of passengers, mail and freight, an all Canadian Northwest Passage is completed.”
“The captain of a bay schooner is supposed to work with his hands just as well as the men.”
“It turns out that the schooner is Russian from Varna, and is called the”
“The master of the schooner is pronounced to be legally competent to command the vessel, and the embargo laid on her is ordered to be quashed.”
“Putting your eggs in a giant basket/schooner is precisely what they don’t want to do @ their scale.”
Schooner Launches Specialized Servers for Speedy Data Delivery
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘schooner’.
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Beer and Brewing
Words about beer and the making of it.
airlock, bung, carboy, diversol, hops, mashtun, beer, sparge, trub, wort, malt, malt liquor and 184 more...
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January 2012
bloviate, pastiche, apparat, facile, paroxysm, pique, bedfellow, pedigree, tutelage, protege, protégé, retroactive and 196 more...
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Amusing Nautical Words
coxswain, mizzenmast, boomjumper, abaft, cuddy, theodolite, gurrybutt, lily iron, yaw, lobscouse, orlop, dreadnought
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Words with two Os in them
theriomorphic, zoo, oberon, pool, tool, fool, cool, school, occlusion, operation, opioid, solenoid and 24 more...
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EN - high brow
abrogate, abstemious, abstract of law, alderman, apocryphal, apostasy, apoplexy, apotheosis, apposite, aver, decorous, apprehensive and 51 more...
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Originally
Being a list of words which have the word "originally" in their definitions. Sometimes this takes the form "originally... now...."
leave, primitively, sherry, boulevard, pressboard, Zouave, wolfhound, Babenberg, kumiss, Chickasaw, azalea, bombardon and 19 more...
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Out to Sea
If I had a boat
I'd go out on the ocean
And if I had a pony
I'd ride him on my boat
And we could all together
Go out on the ocean
Me upon my pony on my boat.boat, ship, skiff, barge, canoe, catamaran, yacht, scow, lifeboat, launch, ketch, dory and 303 more...
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Charles Michael Kittridge Thompson IV
Words from the songs of Frank Black, a.k.a. Black Francis
zugzwang, valhalla, montalvo, ishist, tritons, mosh, siam, llano del rio, protohuman, tumbleweeds, ludwigshafen, ballyhoos and 349 more...
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Nautical Words
lubber, mizzenmast, circumnavigation, clipper, cordage, galleon, gangplank, gangway, flying bridge, following sea, schooner, amidships and 106 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, S
scrunch, solace, sabotage, saccade, sacerdotal, sacrilegious, sacristy, snappy, skew, steadfast, scowl, scorch and 781 more...
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-oons (once of more than one syllable)
Originally this list was to contain multisyllabic words that end in "oon," but as you can see from the comments, all hell broke loose.
doubloon, poltroon, spittoon, patroon, dragoon, bassoon, platoon, typhoon, rangoon, maroon, pontoon, monsoon and 96 more...
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Words Covered in Faery Dust (S)
words that evoke magic, mystery, mayhem, magnificence or anything else that glimmers in the grass
sabian symbols, saffron, sagacious, sage, salamander, sally lunn, salmon, salsify, salt water taffy, samhain, sand dollar, sandalwood and 270 more...
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Whaleworthy & Piratical Words
A list of favorite nautical words to be sprinkled liberally throughout speech for piratical or Melvillian effect.
batten down, back and fill, beamy, baulking, beckets, bilge, bold shore, boomjumper, breaker, larboard, abaft, ash breeze and 156 more...
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mccaff's Words
schadenfreude, defenestration, monogamous, epipsychidion, chintz, befall, brouhaha, shenanigans, hooligans, lambasted, servitude, portcullis and 113 more...
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Tolland's list
Those I've come across and try to keep fresh within my mind.
clandestine, dysphoric, indictive, vigil, fractious, assiduous, indefatigable, ubiquitous, insidious, paroicous, aplomb, sangfroid and 654 more...
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My Modern Job in the Past
Words I come across at work.
Now stripped of most military terms, which have found a new home on the list Historical Military Terms of Interest. See also (and add to!) hilarious misspe...chaise-marine, delft, delftware, quince, tympan, cresset, navvy, venn diagram, poop deck, apothecary, heliotrope, millinery and 294 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for schooner.

chained_bear "The development of a faster fishing boat, the schooner, increased production capacity of this quick cure a cheap type of salt-cured codfish sold in the West Indies and West Africa. In 1713, the first schooner was built and launched from Eastern Point, Gloucester, by Andrew Robinson, and though there were earlier European experiments with this type of rigging, the Gloucester schooner revolutionized sailing and fishing. It was a small, sleek, two-masted vessel with fore-and-aft rigging and the ability to put a tremendous amount of canvas in topsails. The name comes from an eighteenth-century New England word, scoon, meaning "to skim lightly along the water." In full sail with a good breeze and a flat sea, heeling at a slight angle, the vessels did seem to scoon, and this remains one of the most elegant sights in the history of sailing. But often they were out on the Banks climbing up and tobogganing down swells as high as their masts."
—Mark Kurlansky, Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World (New York: Penguin, 1997), 83 Jul 15, 2009