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.

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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

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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

A yachting incident intensified the rivalry between Turner and Murdoch in 1983 when a Murdoch-sponsored yacht collided with Turner's in the Sydney-Hobart race, sinking Turner's schooner.

From Barron's ● May 6, 2026

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

She dreamed of the ship that would take her, a magnificent schooner with sails like angel wings, cutting across the violent sea.

From "The Underground Railroad: A Novel" by Colson Whitehead

Six schooners outfitted by George Washington to intercept British vessels at sea flew the flag in 1775 as they sailed under his command.

From Seattle Times ● May 23, 2024

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

The ship is a far cry from the old banana boats, steamships and schooners that crowded New York Harbor, like the one that reached the pier in August 1897, its decks “slimy with bananas.”

From New York Times ● Aug. 4, 2017

Clippers and schooners brought them back from Jakarta, Peking, and Japan.

From "Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell

Related Words

• vessel
• yacht