Definitions

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

  • noun A vessel of considerable size for deep-water navigation.
  • noun A sailing vessel having three or more square-rigged masts.
  • noun An aircraft or spacecraft.
  • noun The crew of one of these vessels.
  • noun One's fortune.
  • intransitive verb To place or receive on board a ship.
  • intransitive verb To cause to be transported; send. synonym: send.
  • intransitive verb To place (a ship's mast or rudder, for example) in its working position.
  • intransitive verb To bring into a ship or boat.
  • intransitive verb To place (an oar) in a resting position inside a boat without removing it from the oarlock.
  • intransitive verb To hire (a person) for work on a ship.
  • intransitive verb To take in (water) over the side of a ship.
  • intransitive verb To go aboard a ship; embark.
  • intransitive verb To travel by ship.
  • intransitive verb To hire oneself out or enlist for service on a ship.
  • idiom (tight ship) A well-managed and efficient business, household, or organization.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In an ancient style of chess played with dice, the piece called ‘bishop’ in the modern game. In this game each player had two sets of white pieces and two sets of black pieces respectively, consisting of two kings, two rooks (elephants), two knights (equestrians), two bishops (ships), and four pawns (pedestrians) each.
  • To put or take on board a ship or vessel: as, to ship goods at Liverpool for New York.
  • To send or convey by ship; transport by ship.
  • To deliver to a common carrier, forwarder, express company, etc., for transportation, whether by land or water or both: as, to ship by express, by railway, or by stage.
  • To engage for service on board any vessel: as, to ship seamen.
  • To fix in proper place: as, to ship the oars, the tiller, or the rudder.
  • To go on board a vessel to make a voyage; take ship; embark.
  • To engage for service on board a ship.
  • A common English suffix, which may be attached to any noun denoting a person or agent to denote the state, office, dignity, profession, art, or proficiency of such person or agent: as, lord- ship, fellowship, friendship, clerkship, steward- ship, horsemanship, worship (orig. worthship), etc.
  • noun A vessel of considerable size adapted to navigation: a general term for sea-going vessels of every kind, except boats.
  • noun Eccles., a vessel formed like the hull of a ship, in which incense was kept: same as navicula, 1.

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

  • transitive verb To put on board of a ship, or vessel of any kind, for transportation; to send by water.
  • transitive verb By extension, in commercial usage, to commit to any conveyance for transportation to a distance.
  • transitive verb colloq. Hence, to send away; to get rid of.
  • transitive verb To engage or secure for service on board of a ship.
  • transitive verb To receive on board ship.
  • transitive verb To put in its place.
  • noun obsolete Pay; reward.
  • noun Any large seagoing vessel.
  • noun Specifically, a vessel furnished with a bowsprit and three masts (a mainmast, a foremast, and a mizzenmast), each of which is composed of a lower mast, a topmast, and a topgallant mast, and square-rigged on all masts. See Illustation in Appendix.
  • noun obsolete A dish or utensil (originally fashioned like the hull of a ship) used to hold incense.
  • noun [Eng.] a private ship taken into the service of the government in time of war, and armed and equipped like a ship of war.
  • noun See under General.
  • noun hard biscuit prepared for use on shipboard; -- called also ship bread. See Hardtack.
  • noun a boy who serves in a ship.
  • noun one who breaks up vessels when unfit for further use.
  • noun a mercantile agent employed in buying and selling ships, procuring cargoes, etc., and generally in transacting the business of a ship or ships when in port.

Etymologies

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

[Middle English, from Old English scip.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From relationship.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English ship, schip, from Old English scip, from Proto-Germanic *skipan (compare West Frisian skip, Dutch schip, German Schiff, Danish skib), from Proto-Indo-European *skēi-b-, *ski-b- (compare Lithuanian skiẽbti ‘to rip up’, Latvian škibît ‘to cut, lop’).

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