Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Nautical, a helmsman; also, one on the lookout who gives steering-orders to the helmsman.

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

  • noun rare A helmsman.

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

  • noun A helmsman.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

French timonier, from timon a helm, from Latin temo, temonis, a pole.

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Examples

  • The wounded of the enemy, numbering eleven, would have met with but short shrift at the hands of their captors, but for the interposition of the man whom I have termed our timoneer, who seemed to be a petty chief.

    A Middy of the Slave Squadron A West African Story Harry Collingwood 1886

  • This suspicion was strengthened, a little later on, by the fact that as we approached a certain bend in the river our timoneer edged the canoe in toward the eastern bank, until we were completely plunged in the deep shadow of the vegetation that grew right down to the water's edge, as though he were desirous of escaping observation; at least there was no other reason that I could think of for such a manoeuvre, for by this time the current was running up quite strongly, and under ordinary circumstances it would have been to our advantage to have remained in mid-channel, where the full strength of it would be felt.

    A Middy of the Slave Squadron A West African Story Harry Collingwood 1886

Comments

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  • "...it was only when he brought his nose above the break of the quarterdeck that his eyes returned to him, with the glow of the quartermaster at the con, a grayhaired man named Richardson, and of Walsh, the much younger timoneer."

    —Patrick O'Brian, The Far Side of the World, 139

    February 20, 2008

  • "... the helmsman, or person who manages the helm to direct the ship's course."

    Falconer's New Universal Dictionary of the Marine (1816), 567

    October 12, 2008

  • "But where was Himself, the timoneer?" --Finnegans Wake

    January 1, 2013

  • "'Keep her so,' he said to the timoneer, and gave the order, the long-expected and very welcome order, to pipe to dinner."

    Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian, p 70 of the Norton paperback edition

    July 8, 2019