three-master

[three-mas-ter, -mah-ster]

noun

Nautical.

1. a sailing ship with three masts.

Other Word Forms

• three-masted adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of three-master¹

First recorded in 1880–85

Example Sentences

The three-master has successfully passed sea trials in the Bay of Biscay and is now to embark on its maiden voyage: a transatlantic crossing to where its namesake once roved with the Americans.

Read more on BBC

The brutal challenges of Arctic travel were well known by 1879, and the expedition’s hardy three-master — the USS Jeannette, equipped with a supplemental steam engine and a specially reinforced bow — was as prepared for heavy pack ice as any vessel of the time could be.

Read more on Washington Post

The tour de force here, though, is “Harbor Scene on Cape Cod,” a combination of slapdash rough water, coruscating shores and a jaunty yellow-decked three-master that an unknown artist painted in the 1890s.

Read more on New York Times

He would have learned much concerning the differences between a square-rigged three-master and a schooner like the Noank.

Read more on Project Gutenberg

Not a great while after that and just as the day was dawning, a bulky three-master, running along in a steady, businesslike manner, appeared to be almost in danger of being run into by a much smaller craft which had been following her.

Read more on Project Gutenberg