Definitions

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

  • noun One who serves in a navy or works on a ship.
  • noun One who travels by water.
  • noun A low-crowned straw hat with a flat top and flat brim.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One who sails; a seaman; a mariner; one of the crew of a ship or vessel.
  • noun Synonyms Sailor, Seaman, Mariner. To most landsmen any one who leads a seafaring life is a sailor. Nelson was a great sailor. Technically, sailor applies only to the men before the mast. To a landsman seaman seems a business term for a sailor; technically, seaman includes sailors and petty officers. Mariner is an elevated, poetic, or quaint term for a seaman; shipman is a still older term. The technical use of mariner is now restricted to legal documents. There is no present distinction in name between the men in the navy and those in the merchant marine.

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

  • noun One who follows the business of navigating ships or other vessels; one who understands the practical management of ships; one of the crew of a vessel; a mariner; a common seaman.
  • noun (Zoöl.) A species of grunt (Orthopristis chrysopterus syn. Pomadasys chrysopterus), an excellent food fish common on the southern coasts of the United States; -- called also hogfish, and pigfish.

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

  • noun One who follows the business of navigating ships or other vessels; one who understands the practical management of ships; one of the crew of a vessel; a mariner; a common seaman.

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

  • noun a stiff hat made of straw with a flat crown
  • noun a serviceman in the navy
  • noun any member of a ship's crew

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From sailer.

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Examples

  • They knew that drink -- and drink with a sailor is always excessive -- made them mad, but only mildly mad.

    Chapter 16 2010

  • He added, This sailor is a veritable storehouse of information of all kinds, as he reads and retains everything that comes through.

    Nixon and the Chiefs 2002

  • He added, This sailor is a veritable storehouse of information of all kinds, as he reads and retains everything that comes through.

    Nixon and the Chiefs 2002

  • They knew that drink -- and drink with a sailor is always excessive -- made them mad, but only mildly mad.

    Chapter XVI 1913

  • And by "sailor" is meant, not the average efficient and hopeless creature who is found to-day in the forecastle of deepwater ships, but the man who will take a fabric compounded of wood and iron and rope and canvas and compel it to obey his will on the surface of the sea.

    SMALL-BOAT SAILING 2010

  • And by "sailor" is meant, not the average efficient and hopeless creature who is found to-day in the forecastle of deepwater ships, but the man who will take a fabric compounded of wood and iron and rope and canvas and compel it to obey his will on the surface of the sea.

    Small-Boat Sailing 1917

  • And by "sailor" is meant, not the average efficient and hopeless creature who is found to-day in the forecastle of deepwater ships, but the man who will take a fabric compounded of wood and iron and rope and canvas and compel it to obey his will on the surface of the sea.

    Small-Boat Sailing:Jack London Ranch Album 1912

  • And by "sailor" is meant, not the average efficient and hopeless creature who is found to-day in the forecastle of deepwater ships, but the man who will take a fabric compounded of wood and iron and rope and canvas and compel it to obey his will on the surface of the sea.

    Small Boat Sailing With Jack London 1912

  • And by "sailor" is meant, not the average inefficient and hopeless creature who is found to-day in the forecastles of deepwater ships, but the man who will take a fabric compounded of wood and iron and rope and canvas and compel it to obey his will on the surface of the sea.

    The Joy Of Small-Boat Sailing 1912

  • _________ I think what is being said is that other countries refer to their sailors in some form of the word "marine" as they do not have a distinct separate branch that differentiates a sailor from a marine as in the US military.

    A good M�xico news site 2009

Comments

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  • "'I do love a jolly sailor,' sang the women.

    'Blithe and merry might he be...' A brewer's dray interrupted them... but when they had done with screaming and making gestures at the brewer's men, they sang on

    'Sailors they get all the money,

    Soldiers they get none but brass.

    I do love a jolly sailor,

    Soldiers they may kiss my arse.

    Oh my little rolling sailor,

    Oh my little rolling he,

    I do love a jolly sailor,

    Soldiers may be damned for me.'

    --P. O'Brian, The Yellow Admiral, 234–235

    March 19, 2008

  • Heehee.

    March 20, 2008