schooner

American  

[skoo-ner] / ˈsku nər /

noun

schooners plural

1. 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.

2. a very tall glass, as for beer.

3. prairie schooner.

---

schooner British  

/ ˈskuːnə /

noun

1. a sailing vessel with at least two masts, with all lower sails rigged fore-and-aft, and with the main mast stepped aft

2. a large glass for sherry

3. a large glass for beer

---

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• schooners
  plural

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:

• ketch vs. schooner
• schooner vs. sloop

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."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

schooner schooners

Behind them is the Bel Espoir, a schooner vessel on which the youths -- whether from Libya and Egypt or France and Bosnia -- have been sailing the Mediterranean to promote peace.

From Barron's ● Oct. 18, 2025

Lake Superior’s first known commercial casualty, in 1816, was a schooner with a name that suggests hubris: the Invincible.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 3, 2025

In early January, excitement builds aboard the Avontuur - a 100-year-old schooner - as it sets sail from Germany and heads towards the rough waters of the North Sea.

From BBC ● Sep. 20, 2025

By the late 1850s, two brothers, Oscar Lovell Shafter and James McMillan Shafter, had established a large operation to produce butter and cheese, and ferried their goods to San Francisco on small schooner ships.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 21, 2025

“In ’28, I be on d’Hettie Redd sout’ o’ Antigua when d’tempis’ hit D’wind was outrageous, an’ d’oF schooner break up like chips failin’ ’fore d’ax.

From "The Cay" by Theodore Taylor

The largest wooden boat festival in North America is a rare chance to see and sail 300 of the finest specimens, from schooners to longboats.

From Seattle Times ● May 23, 2023

Time Out credited the "inexpensive Neapolitan pizzas and beer schooners" at Paesano as one of the highlights on the road.

From BBC ● Aug. 25, 2022

Small, shallow-draft scows then took the stones to much bigger schooners or sloops, anchored in deeper water, for the trip up the Potomac.

From Washington Post ● Apr. 1, 2021

Make your way to Discovery Pier for the noon departure of the tall ship Manitou, a replica of cargo schooners that once sailed the Eastern Seaboard.

From New York Times ● Jul. 26, 2018

Some who had tried this lonely sort of life had given up and joined the crews of purse seiners or of long-line halibut schooners.

From "Snow Falling on Cedars: A Novel" by David Guterson

Related Words

• vessel
• yacht