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• seaman
  seaman

  noun

  a person skilled in seamanship.
• Seaman
  Seaman

  noun

  Elizabeth Cochrane original name of Nellie Bly.

seaman

¹ American  

[see-muhn] / ˈsi mən /

noun

• seamen
  plural

1. a person skilled in seamanship.

2. a person whose trade or occupation is assisting in the handling, sailing, and navigating of a ship during a voyage, especially one below the rank of officer; sailor.

3. U.S. Navy and Coast Guard. an enlisted person ranking below petty officer.

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Seaman ² American  

[see-muhn] / ˈsi mən /

noun

1. Elizabeth Cochrane original name of Nellie Bly.

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seaman British  

/ ˈsiːmən /

noun

1. a rating trained in seamanship as opposed to electrical engineering, etc

2. a man who serves as a sailor

3. a person skilled in seamanship

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Synonym Usage

See sailor.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• superseaman
  noun
• seaman-like
  adjective
• seamanly
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• seamen
  plural

Etymology

Origin of seaman

First recorded before 900; Middle English seeman, Old English sǣmann. See sea, man

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

seaman Seaman seamen

"We don't have enough water on board right now. We got food a few days back," said one Indian seaman stuck in a small refuelling boat off Iraq, within sight of the Iranian shore.

From Barron's ● Mar. 20, 2026

Directed by Bille August, this ‘Masterpiece’ adaptation of the Alexandre Dumas classic stars Sam Claflin as the wronged seaman and Jeremy Irons as his friend and fellow prisoner.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 19, 2026

Back outside, with a view of the port and the sunlit open sea, we met a merchant seaman, relaxing on a bench, who told us his son worked for the New York Times.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 25, 2025

In 1985, as the Year of the Pacific approached, the ship’s captain was Peter Willcox, a lifelong seaman and conscientious objector from Vietnam who’d devoted his career to environmental action on the oceans.

From Slate ● Jul. 22, 2025

“A sailor? A common sailor? A common ordinary seaman bests the great Inigo Montoya with the sword? In-con-ceiv-a-ble. He must be the Dread Pirate Roberts. Otherwise it makes no sense.”

From "The Princess Bride" by William Goldman

Edward Seaman and Julia Coombs both lost their fathers and found each other.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 10, 2026

Manchester United were top of the Premier League at the time and, along with all the teams we had to play, they probably thought it was good news for them that Seaman was out.

From BBC ● Apr. 17, 2026

But in 1991, Dixon and his goalkeeper were certainly not on the same page when he attempted a long-range back pass to Seaman in a match against Coventry at Highbury.

From BBC ● Apr. 10, 2026

By the end of October, Seaman had a pretty good idea of how Kimwolf was sneaking onto Ipidea’s networks.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 3, 2026

More than anything, that was what my newly enlisted father, Seaman 2nd Class Milton Stephanides, looked like as he bounced in a landing craft off the California coast in the fall of 1944.

From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides

But the FAA expressly excludes from arbitration “contracts of employment of seamen, railroad employees, or any other class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce.”

From Slate ● Jun. 3, 2026

The Journal spoke to more than a dozen seamen held in the gulf, who described deteriorating conditions tipping into a humanitarian crisis.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 9, 2026

In 2025 the number had ballooned to 410, with 6,223 merchant seamen falling victim.

From BBC ● Feb. 8, 2026

Officials say another 28 people are unaccounted for but the families of seamen say the number is probably much higher.

From Reuters ● Nov. 17, 2023

All the younger children were able-bodied seamen who, presumably, ate hardtack and bunked before the mast.

From "Cheaper by the Dozen" by Frank B. Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey

Related Words

• mariner