seaman
noun
a person skilled in seamanship.
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seaman
1 American
[see-muhn]
/ ˈsi mən /
noun
-
seamen
plural
-
a person skilled in seamanship.
-
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.
-
U.S. Navy and Coast Guard. an enlisted person ranking below petty officer.
Seaman
2
American
[see-muhn]
/ ˈsi mən /
noun
seaman
British
/ ˈsiːmən /
noun
-
a rating trained in seamanship as opposed to electrical engineering, etc
-
a man who serves as a sailor
-
a person skilled in seamanship
Synonym Usage
See sailor.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of seaman
First recorded before 900; Middle English seeman, Old English sǣmann. See sea, man
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.
See Examples For:
It turns out the seaman had been running laps on a warship in the Charles de Gaulle’s carrier group.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 4, 2026
"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
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 1943 he joined the Navy, where as a seaman he carried out general ship and gunnery duties on the Flower class corvette HMS Potentilla.
From BBC ● Oct. 7, 2025
“Hannah will be all right if she has that seaman to help her. I liked his looks.”
From "The Witch of Blackbird Pond" by Elizabeth George Speare
In 1945, MI5 opened a letter Hobsbawm wrote to his first wife, Muriel Seaman.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 2026
Poppy, nine, whose father, Able Seaman Daniel Turnbull, died in 2020 from leukaemia, asked him: "What makes you laugh when you've had a difficult day?"
From BBC ● Jul. 11, 2026
That impressed me about Alex straight away, but what really stood out was how he performed when he came into the first team after David Seaman got injured in January.
From BBC ● Apr. 17, 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
They were signed by the radioman’s assistant, a Seaman Philip Milholland—he’d transcribed the radio transmissions.
From "Snow Falling on Cedars: A Novel" by David Guterson
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
A boatswain on a merchant ship, who supervises the deck’s seamen and manages equipment like ropes and cables, can earn nearly $5,200 a month.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 5, 2026
In 2025 the number had ballooned to 410, with 6,223 merchant seamen falling victim.
From BBC ● Feb. 8, 2026
The researchers have estimated that the proportion of lung cancers related to onboard asbestos exposure were of the order of 27 per cent in Australian seamen and 12 per cent in British seamen.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 14, 2023
She thinks of the wild old seamen who lived in this town, smugglers and pirates, sailing over the dark seas, winding their ships between ten thousand reefs.
From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr
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