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
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.
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
The bridge to the islands was opening for a two-masted schooner that was maneuvering down the inland waterway.
From "The Great Santini" by Pat Conroy
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.
