schooner
Americannoun
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Nautical. any of various types of sailing vessel having a foremast and mainmast, with or without other masts, and having fore-and-aft sails on all lower masts.
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a very tall glass, as for beer.
noun
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a sailing vessel with at least two masts, with all lower sails rigged fore-and-aft, and with the main mast stepped aft
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a large glass for sherry
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a large glass for beer
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of schooner
1705–15, perhaps scoon, variant of dial. scun scud 1 (compare dialectal Swedish skunna, Old English scyndan ) + -er 1
Compare meaning
How does schooner compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
Explanation
You're most likely to see a schooner in an old seaport or tourist harbor, since it's an old-fashioned kind of boat with at least two masts and sails. There are still places you can ride on a schooner, but schooners were most common along the east coast of the United States in the eighteenth century. Schooners were historically used for fishing and transporting cargo, and sometimes for racing. The word schooner was probably first used in Gloucester, Massachusetts, coined from the Scottish scon, "to send over water, to skip stones."
Vocabulary lists containing schooner
The Cay
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"Another Place, Another Time," Vocabulary from the short story
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Treasure Island
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
What to Do: Book a sunset sail aboard the Schooner Eleanor in Kennebunkport or spend an afternoon browsing Sherman’s Maine Coast Book Shop in Portland.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 20, 2026
Ms Schooner said her 10-year-old son was part of the school group, though he was not attacked.
From BBC • Nov. 21, 2025
In 2016, she entered a collection of her stories for the Schooner Book Prize at the University of Nebraska, expecting to earn perhaps an honorable mention.
From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 11, 2024
Navy Schooner Alligator that grounded on the reef in 1822.
From Seattle Times • Sep. 9, 2023
We could see the wide Channel & even Boston-Town, & — my God, I do not jest—there, drawing up, was a Sloop & a Schooner, discharged Boats with Parliament’s Marines to protect their seized Animals.
From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The Pox Party" by M.T. Anderson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
