shellback
Americannoun
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an old sailor.
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a person who has crossed the equator by boat.
noun
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informal a sailor who has crossed the equator Compare polliwog
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an experienced or old sailor
Etymology
Origin of shellback
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.
Then he was shoved down a greased slide, belabored through another gauntlet, and pronounced a shellback.
From Time Magazine Archive
They are far different from the old-line shellback malcontents who were duck soup for Curran's earlier pinko type of organizing, and they are not obliged to hold union cards.
From Time Magazine Archive
Mr. & Mrs. Hoover were exempt, he being a "shellback" with 14 crossings of the Equator to his credit, more than anyone else present except his naval aide, Commander A. T. Beauregard.
From Time Magazine Archive
They have adjusted to a new time and a new social structure, and this is not necessarily because, as one old shellback snorted, "The '400' has been marked down to $3.98."
From Time Magazine Archive
"I found you on the road out here in a dazed state of mind, and you knew nothing whatever of ships or of sailors, though I took you for a shellback by your walk."
From The Grain Ship by Robertson, Morgan
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.
