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• ship
  ship

  noun

  a vessel, especially a large oceangoing one propelled by sails or engines.
• -ship
  -ship

  a native English suffix of nouns denoting condition, character, office, skill, etc..

ship

¹ American  

[ship] / ʃɪp /

noun

1. a vessel, especially a large oceangoing one propelled by sails or engines.

2. Nautical.

   1. a sailing vessel square-rigged on all of three or more masts, having jibs, staysails, and a spanker on the aftermost mast.

   2. Now Rare. a bark having more than three masts.

3. the crew and, sometimes, the passengers of a vessel.

   The captain gave shore leave to the whole ship.

4. an airship, airplane, or spacecraft.

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verb (used with object)

shipped, shipping

1. to put or take on board a ship or other means of transportation; to send or transport by ship, rail, truck, plane, etc.

2. Nautical. to take in (water) over the side, as a vessel does when waves break over it.

3. to bring (an object) into a ship or boat.

4. to engage (someone) for service on a ship.

5. to fix in a ship or boat in the proper place for use.

6. to place (an oar) in proper position for rowing.

7. to send away.

   They shipped the kids off to camp for the summer.

verb (used without object)

shipped, shipping

1. to go on board or travel by ship; embark.

2. to engage to serve on a ship.

3. 1. to be sent or transported by ship, rail, truck, plane, etc..

      Both packages shipped this morning.

   2. to permit of being transported by any of these means.

      Fresh raspberries do not ship well.

verb phrase

1. ship out

   1. to leave, especially for another country or assignment.

      He said goodbye to his family and shipped out for the West Indies.

   2. to send away, especially to another country or assignment.

   3. Informal. to quit, resign, or be fired from a job.

      Shape up or ship out!

idioms

1. jump ship,

   1. to escape from a ship, especially one in foreign waters or a foreign port, as to avoid further service as a sailor or to request political asylum.

   2. to withdraw support or membership from a group, organization, cause, etc.; defect or desert.

      Some of the more liberal members have jumped ship.

2. when one's ship comes in / home, when one's fortune is assured.

   She'll buy a house when her ship comes in.

3. run a tight ship, to exercise a close, strict control over a ship's crew, a company, an organization, or the like.

ship ² American  

[ship] / ʃɪp /

noun

1. a romantic relationship between fictional characters, as in fan fiction, or between famous people, whether or not the romance actually exists in the book, show, etc., or in real life.

   the TV show's most popular ships.

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verb (used with or without object)

shipped, shipping

1. to take an interest in or hope for a romantic relationship between (fictional characters or famous people), whether or not the romance actually exists.

   I'm shipping those guys—they would make a great couple!

-ship ³ American  

1. a native English suffix of nouns denoting condition, character, office, skill, etc..

   clerkship; friendship; statesmanship.

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ship ¹ British  

/ ʃɪp /

noun

1. a vessel propelled by engines or sails for navigating on the water, esp a large vessel that cannot be carried aboard another, as distinguished from a boat

2. nautical a large sailing vessel with three or more square-rigged masts

3. the crew of a ship

4. short for airship spaceship

5. informal any vehicle or conveyance

6. when one has become successful or wealthy

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verb

1. to place, transport, or travel on any conveyance, esp aboard a ship

   ship the microscopes by aeroplane

   can we ship tomorrow?

2. (tr) nautical to take (water) over the side

3. to bring or go aboard a vessel

   to ship oars

4. informal to send away, often in order to be rid of

   they shipped the children off to boarding school

5. (intr) to engage to serve aboard a ship

   I shipped aboard a Liverpool liner

6. informal (tr) to concede (a goal)

   Celtic have shipped eight goals in three away matches

-ship ² British  

suffix

1. indicating state or condition

   fellowship

2. indicating rank, office, or position

   lordship

3. indicating craft or skill

   horsemanship

   workmanship

   scholarship

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ship More Idioms  

More idioms and phrases containing ship

• desert a sinking ship
• enough to sink a ship
• shape up (or ship out)
• tight ship
• when one's ship comes in

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Usage

What does -ship mean? The suffix -ship is used to form nouns to indicate a "state of being" or "skill." It is often used in everyday and technical terms. The suffix -ship comes from Old English -scipe, meaning “shape.” Yes, shape. Discover why at our entry for shape. The Latin-derived equivalent of -scipe is -form, from Latin -fōrmis, meaning “having the shape of.” This suffix appears in words such as fungiform and oviform. To learn more, check out our Words That Use article on -form.

Other Word Forms

• misship
  verb
• preship
  verb (used with object)
• shipless
  adjective
• shippable
  adjective
• shiplessly
  adverb

Etymology

Origin of ship¹

First recorded before 900; Middle English, Old English noun scip, scipp; cognate with Dutch schip, German Schiff, Old Norse, Gothic skip; verb derivative of the noun

Origin of ship²

First recorded in 1995–2000; shortening of relationship

Origin of -ship³

Middle English, Old English -scipe; akin to shape; cognate with dialectal Frisian, dialectal Dutch schip

Explanation

A ship is a large sea-going vessel, and it's also a way to transport goods. You can ship things on a ship — but, confusingly, you can also ship them on a truck or a train. A ship is like a boat, only larger — some definitions of a sailing ship say it has at least three masts. A cruise ship transports a large number of people in what is basically a floating hotel. A cargo ship, on the other hand, transports goods being imported and exported between countries. One guess about the origin of ship links it to a Germanic word meaning "hollowed-out tree."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

ship -ship shipped shipping

“That’s going to be even more important as he tries to right the ship of his debt.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 2, 2026

Yet growth is expected to come fast: Barclays expects 60,000 humanoids will be put to work by the end of 2026, while some 500,000 robots could ship annually by 2031, according to the bank’s projections.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 2, 2026

Promoters scraped out regional fiefdoms where transient performers would fight for a spell before jumping ship in search of better deals.

From Salon ● Oct. 2, 2026

They divided the celebrities into teams, leading them to successfully find the treasure on the pirate ship, bagging £15,000.

From BBC ● Oct. 1, 2026

Uncle Dutch says he slid right out the little round window called the “pothole” and over the edge of the ship.

From "The Seven Wonders of Sassafras Springs" by Betty G. Birney

The intimate relationship between the three languages is there in the very word “relationship”, a trilingualism love child, “relation” both French and Latin, -ship an Anglo-Saxon suffix.

From The Guardian ● Sep. 6, 2019

Line-end hyphens were retained in past participles in i-, y- and equivalent, and after the prefixes out- and to-; they were omitted before common endings such as -lich, -ship, -ness, -full.

From A Concise Dictionary of Middle English From A.D. 1150 to 1580 by A. L. (Anthony Lawson) Mayhew

Landscape, earlier landskip, has the suffix which in English would be -ship.

From The Romance of Words (4th ed.) by Ernest Weekley

—The termination "-ship" is the Anglo-Saxon scipe, scype, from verb scipan, to create, form; and hence as a termination of nouns denotes form, condition, office, dignity.

From Notes and Queries, Vol. IV, Number 101, October 4, 1851 A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. by Various

But soon after, a co-conspirator of Lui’s allegedly emailed a Malaysian government official saying that all 27 were shipped to China.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 2, 2026

Americans might breathe a sigh of relief with prices for gasoline down a bit from last week, but eventually they could pay a premium on the goods shipped to their homes or local grocery stores.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 1, 2026

Police allege that someone was able to access the goods by showing a fake airway bill - a document that accompanies shipped items.

From BBC ● Sep. 24, 2026

We’ve shipped enormous quantities of rump across the Pacific for ground beef for hamburgers.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 20, 2026

He invested heavily in a company that bought perishable foods and shipped them in the latest refrigerated cars to far-off cities.

From "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson

But with many tankers turning off tracking systems or transferring cargoes between ships to minimize threats, other analysts are circumspect about just how much shipping has recovered.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 2, 2026

In July, it announced a 15-nation maritime alliance to safeguard shipping through the Red Sea, the Bab al Mandab strait and the Gulf of Aden.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 2, 2026

Oil prices fell Friday, giving back part of Thursday’s gains as traders weighed recovering Middle East crude exports against renewed shipping risks and a larger U.S. military buildup in the region.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 2, 2026

Businesses are taking “a very close look” at transportation costs, trying to spot inefficiencies and looking to maximize shipping.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 1, 2026

Next they sent a check to the company who had been shipping the fresh fish all the way from the coast.

From "Mr. Popper's Penguins" by Florence Atwater and Richard Atwater

Related Words

• dispatch
• export
• haul
• move
• shift
• smuggle
• transfer
• transmit