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

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Etymology

Origin of schooner

1705–15, perhaps scoon, variant of dial. scun scud ¹ (compare dialectal Swedish skunna, Old English scyndan ) + -er ¹

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Compare meaning

How does schooner compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:

• schooner vs. sloop
• ketch vs. schooner

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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

By century’s turn over three hundred Japanese had arrived on San Piedro, most of them schooner hands who jumped ship in Port Jefferson Harbor in order to remain in the United States.

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

As a young man, by his account, he smuggled diamonds, oversaw coconut plantations, dynamited fish, captained schooners and hunted killer cannibals in the New Guinea jungle.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 2, 2026

Instead, he conjured the past as a master of richly detailed historical works brimming with schooners, brigs and sloops, their sails flapping under moody clouds, with shore lights twinkling in the distance.

From New York Times ● May 1, 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

The day after Easter, Bassi and his crew — three family members and an unrelated father-and-son team — loaded up the Polaris, one of four century-old wooden schooners still chasing halibut out of Seattle.

From Seattle Times ● Apr. 28, 2019

Over the pond the west wind blew, and into the teeth of the west wind sailed the sloops and schooners, their rails well down, their wet decks gleaming.

From "Stuart Little" by E.B. White

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Related Words

• vessel
• yacht

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