noun
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a boat or ship driven by steam engines
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Also called: steam box. an apparatus for steaming wooden beams and planks to make them pliable for shipbuilding
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a vessel used to cook food by steam
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slang a clash of sporting teams characterized by rough play
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of steamer
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:
I got a steamer that I actually pull on over my mouth.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 23, 2026
Cheers to hotels that will deliver a professional-grade steamer to your room.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 18, 2026
Synear Foods’ pork-and-mushroom shumai, sold at Costco and H Mart, can go straight from the freezer to the steamer and be served right in the basket.
From Salon ● Jul. 12, 2026
These are foam or gel-filled toys of various brands shaped like bao buns, and sometimes sold in plastic replicas of bamboo steamer baskets.
From Barron's ● Jun. 5, 2026
She opens the steamer basket to check on the mandu.
From "The Sun Is Also a Star" by Nicola Yoon
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Portable steamers are cheap and easy to use.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 15, 2026
Thousands of schooners, or sailing ships, and hundreds of steamers hauled cargo and passengers between bustling port cities such as Chicago, Detroit and Cleveland.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 1, 2023
For the past 20 years she has instead worked maintaining electrical items, such as water purifiers and clothes steamers, in people's homes.
From BBC ● Dec. 14, 2022
Posters advertising the sales showed steamers merrily plying the imagined waters of the river.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 13, 2022
Milwaukee put three steamers and their crews onboard a train, leaving that city with only one working engine.
From "The Great Fire" by Jim Murphy
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.