Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A single-masted, fore-and-aft-rigged sailing boat with a short standing bowsprit or none at all and a single headsail set from the forestay.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To draw (logs of timber) on a sloop.
  • noun In lumbering, a strong crutch of hard wood, with a strong bar across the limbs, used for drawing timber out of a swamp or inaccessible place.
  • noun A small fore-and-aft rigged vessel with one mast, generally carrying a jib, fore-staysail, mainsail, and gafftopsail. Some sloops formerly had a square topsail.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Naut.) A vessel having one mast and fore-and-aft rig, consisting of a boom-and-gaff mainsail, jibs, staysail, and gaff topsail. The typical sloop has a fixed bowsprit, topmast, and standing rigging, while those of a cutter are capable of being readily shifted. The sloop usually carries a centerboard, and depends for stability upon breadth of beam rather than depth of keel. The two types have rapidly approximated since 1880. One radical distinction is that a sloop may carry a centerboard. See cutter, and Illustration in Appendix.
  • noun (Naut.) In modern usage, a sailing vessel having one mast, commonly with a Bermuda rig, with either a center-board or a keel. In the United States, a sloop may have one or two headsails, while in Western Europe and Great Britain a sloop has only one headsail.
  • noun formerly, a vessel of war rigged either as a ship, brig, or schooner, and mounting from ten to thirty-two guns; now, any war vessel larger than a gunboat, and carrying guns on one deck only.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun nautical A single-masted sailboat with only one headsail.
  • noun military A sailing warship, smaller than a frigate, with its guns all on one deck.
  • noun a sloop of war, smaller than a frigate, larger than a corvette

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a sailing vessel with a single mast set about one third of the boat's length aft of the bow

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Dutch sloep, from Middle Dutch slūpen, to glide; see sleubh- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Dutch sloep, from Middle Dutch slœpen ("to glide").

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word sloop.

Examples

  • The Eidolon, moored at pier number one, the one closest to the sea, carried one square-rigged mast and whatever they called a sloop's mast.

    The Magic of Recluce Modesitt, L. E. 1991

  • On those lines it might be urged that whoever acquires a sloop is a pirate, whoever acquires a crowbar a burglar, whoever acquires a sword an assassin.

    The Defense Apuleius 2008

  • On those lines it might be urged that whoever acquires a sloop is a pirate, whoever acquires a crowbar a burglar, whoever acquires a sword an assassin.

    The Defense Apuleius 2008

  • The sloop is a thirty-foot seaworthy Pearson that can sleep four, perfect for the Glendenning family, with a V-berth that can accommodate two up forward, and a port settee in the main salon that converts to a double berth.

    Alice in Jeopardy Ed McBain 2005

  • The sloop is a thirty-foot seaworthy Pearson that can sleep four, perfect for the Glendenning family, with a V-berth that can accommodate two up forward, and a port settee in the main salon that converts to a double berth.

    Alice in Jeopardy Ed McBain 2005

  • The sloop is a thirty-foot seaworthy Pearson that can sleep four, perfect for the Glendenning family, with a V-berth that can accommodate two up forward, and a port settee in the main salon that converts to a double berth.

    Alice in Jeopardy Ed McBain 2005

  • The sloop is a thirty-foot seaworthy Pearson that can sleep four, perfect for the Glendenning family, with a V-berth that can accommodate two up forward, and a port settee in the main salon that converts to a double berth.

    Alice in Jeopardy Ed McBain 2005

  • The sloop was the Little Belt, the last of the British fleet to surrender, after a vain attempt to escape.

    The Land We Live In The Story of Our Country Henry Mann

  • He was what we may call the sloop's husband, but was bound to do whatever Murray commanded, to ask no questions, and to be profoundly ignorant of the real objects of the expedition.

    The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 06, No. 34, August, 1860 Various

  • The sloop was a pretty craft, clinker built, and about the fastest sailing boat within miles of Cardhaven.

    Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper James A. Cooper

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • Pools in reverse.

    July 22, 2007

  • Evelyn Waugh's lost novel, in which an incompetent nature writer is mistaken for a round-the-world yaughtsman, and more or less shanghai'd onto a small sailing boat which sets out for the Horn of Africa and never arrives.

    December 24, 2008