steerage

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

• noun The act or practice of steering.
• noun The effect of the helm on a ship.
• noun The steering apparatus of a ship.
• noun The section of a passenger ship, originally near the rudder, providing the cheapest passenger accommodations.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun The act, practice, or method of steering; guidance; direction; control; specifically, the direction or control of a ship in her course.
• noun That by which a course is steered or directed.
• noun Nautical, the effect of the helm on a ship; the manner in which the ship is affected by the helm: as, she was going nine knots, with easy steerage.
• noun A course steered; a path or way; a course of conduct, or a way of life.
• noun A rudder; a helm; apparatus for steering; hence, a place of government or control.
• noun The part of a ship where the tiller traverses; the stern.
• noun In passenger-ships, the part of the ship allotted to the passengers who travel at the cheapest rate, hence called steerage passengers: generally, except in the newest type of passenger-steamers, not in the stern, as might be supposed, but in the bow; in a man-of-war, the part of the berth-deck just forward of the wardroom: it is generally divided into two apartments, one on each side, called the starboard and port steerages, which are assigned to midshipmen, clerks, and others.

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

• noun The act or practice of steering, or directing.
• noun rare, rare The effect of the helm on a ship; the manner in which an individual ship is affected by the helm.
• noun rare The hinder part of a vessel; the stern.
• noun Properly, the space in the after part of a vessel, under the cabin, but used generally to indicate any part of a vessel having the poorest accommodations and occupied by passengers paying the lowest rate of fare.
• noun Direction; regulation; management; guidance.
• noun rare That by which a course is directed.
• noun a passenger who takes passage in the steerage of a vessel.

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

• noun uncountable The art of steering.
• noun countable The section of a passenger ship that provided inexpensive accomodation with no individual cabins.
• noun countable The effect of the helm on a ship.

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

• noun the act of steering a ship
• noun the cheapest accommodations on a passenger ship