sloop
Americannoun
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of sloop
1620–30; < Dutch sloep; akin to Old English slūpan to glide
Compare meaning
How does sloop compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
Explanation
A sailboat with one mast is known as a sloop. In general, sloops are known as speedy boats that are relatively simple to rig with sails. If you spot a sailboat with a single mast and two sails, it's almost certainly a sloop. Sloops come in many sizes, from small dinghies to 100-foot sailboats. What they have in common is the way they're rigged, or how their sails and masts are organized. A sloop's rigging is usually "fore and aft," with one sail in front of the mast and one behind it. The word sloop comes from the Middle Dutch slupen, "to glide."
Vocabulary lists containing sloop
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
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This Side of Wild
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The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano
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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:
Look at him in the photograph here, circa 1977, the year he won the America’s Cup helming the 12-meter sloop, Courageous.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 7, 2026
Marks told Barron’s in 2021 that he owns a Danish-built sloop named Linnea that he had been fixing up for years, and sailed it in the Chesapeake Bay.
From Barron's ● Oct. 7, 2025
Rubio’s 32-foot Westsail sloop, Malulani, departed Dec. 28 bound for Kaneohe, Oahu.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 3, 2024
Morford-Haines returned to Seattle from Alaska, bought a 25-foot sloop and taught herself to sail.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 4, 2023
And he hobbled away, yelling something at a deckhand who was dumping slops off the stern of a sloop at anchor.
From "Beyond the Bright Sea" by Lauren Wolk
In the 1800s, long before social distancing, the Delaware River in Philadelphia was clogged with sloops, barges, and packet ships hauling cargo and immigrants here.
From Washington Times ● Apr. 21, 2020
The first ships to sail the lakes were classic European schooners, sloops and brigs.
From New York Times ● Aug. 19, 2016
It used to be that the waters were filled mostly with tugboats, fishing boats, sloops and the occasional mammoth steamship pulling in from Europe after the long crossing.
From Scientific American ● Feb. 21, 2014
The catamarans are much faster than the traditional sloops that historically competed for the trophy but have proved hard to handle.
From The Guardian ● May 10, 2013
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
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.
