seaman
noun
a person skilled in seamanship.
Jump To:
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:
"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
Opening the case for the prosecution, Tom Little KC said the trial was about "the entirely avoidable death of a seaman".
From BBC ● Jan. 13, 2026
All told, 89 merchant vessels and more than 2,700 Allied seaman perished in the Arctic.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 2, 2026
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
Her friend the able seaman was nearby, and he paused as he adjusted the canvas cover of the forward hatch to look out at the little girl’s daemon skimming and leaping with the dolphins.
From "The Golden Compass" by Philip Pullman
In 1945, MI5 opened a letter Hobsbawm wrote to his first wife, Muriel Seaman.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 2026
When Dave was fit again, he came back into the side - that was how Arsene operated, and he had made it clear at the start of the season that Seaman was his number one.
From BBC ● Apr. 17, 2026
During his time at Arsenal, Manninger largely played second fiddle to David Seaman, but deputised for the injured England keeper late in the 1997-98 season.
From BBC ● Apr. 16, 2026
Chad Seaman, a researcher at Akamai, joked at one point that the internet could go down if Brundage spent too much time on his exams.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 3, 2026
Ishmael slipped three center pages of Seaman Milholland’s notes free and folded them into quarters.
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
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
Nat remembered all the brawny swaggering seamen who had crowded the chandlery.
From "Carry On, Mr. Bowditch" by Jean Lee Latham
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.
