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. A sailing ship with two or more masts, all with
fore-and-aft sails; if two masted, having a foremast and a main mast. There are variants, such as additional square sails on the fore topmast. Compare ketch and yawl which have a main and a mizzen mast. - n. A glass of beer. Size varies by state, but it is typically one of the larger measures, except in South Australia; see Beer in Australia: Beer glasses for details.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. 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. 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.
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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High Brow
tremulous, vigorous, unction, coadjutor, dotage, mirth, obtuseness, torpid, talisman, infirm, score, subsistence and 49 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 16 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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Words with two Os in them
theriomorphic, zoo, oberon, pool, tool, fool, cool, school, occlusion, operation, opioid, solenoid and 24 more...

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