sloop
Americannoun
-
sloops
plural
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:
As the skipper of the 40-foot sloop First Light, Ms. Brauer had at her fingertips resources that would have amazed the salts of yore.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 24, 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
This sloop was named Sally Lloyd, in honor of one of the colonel’s daughters.
From "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass" by Frederick Douglass
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
And, for a few years, young fair-haired Captain Morgan ran the sloops.
From Scientific American ● Oct. 2, 2015
By 1962, when Nina should have been well past its prime, Mr. Fales entered it in a Newport-to-Bermuda race against a pack of yawls and single-masted sloops.
From New York Times ● Jul. 7, 2013
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
Through the smoke we saw other launches put in from other brigs and sloops slipping toward the embattled docks.
From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves" by M.T. Anderson
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.
