Definitions
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun a petty officer on a merchant ship who controls the work of other seamen; a contraction of
boatswain .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A warrant or petty officer on board a naval ship.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a petty officer on a merchant ship who controls the work of other seamen
- noun a petty officer on a merchant ship who controls the work of other seamen
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
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Examples
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A bosun is a person who gives -- who blows a whistle to give orders to the other sailors.
The Shoemaker and the Tea Party: Memory & the American Revolution 1999
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Her father was, as she always put it, "in the King's Navy," and he had been "bosun" to a ship's
The Adventure of Living : a Subjective Autobiography John St. Loe Strachey 1893
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The wind that had roared all night lay quelled by the headland; the bosun grew too sleepy to shout.
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Jackie-Jackie, a Tongan sailor of experience, served as a sort of bosun and semi-second mate over the mixed Kanaka crew.
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By mid-afternoon, in a huge sea, with the wind after its last shift no more than a stiff breeze, the Tongan bosun sighted a schooner bottom up.
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"Nancy -- my bosun; ain't he a peach?" was the answer I got, and from the mate's manner of enunciation I was quite aware that "Nancy" had been used derisively.
CHAPTER V 2010
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One old man, who I learned was a bosun, was so decrepit that I thought he had been recently injured.
CHAPTER II 2010
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Beneath the third is the bosun, the leader of the able-bodied seamen and the foreman who actually puts the mate's orders into effect.
'A Captain's Duty' 2010
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Beneath the third is the bosun, the leader of the able-bodied seamen and the foreman who actually puts the mate's orders into effect.
'A Captain's Duty' 2010
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Beneath the third is the bosun, the leader of the able-bodied seamen and the foreman who actually puts the mate's orders into effect.
'A Captain's Duty' 2010
chained_bear commented on the word bosun
I always thought this was spelled "boatswain" but pronounced "bosun." (Like coxswain.)
February 11, 2008