Oarswoman

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A woman who participates in rowing a boat with oars
2. An individual of the female sex involved in the sport of rowing using oars for propulsion
3. A female athlete who rows a boat using one or more oars

Etymology: The word is a compound of "oar" and "woman", joined by a linking "-s-" that is easy to overlook. The "-s-" is a relic of the older form of the first element, which is why "oarsman" and "oarswoman" share it: "oar" carried a genitive-style -s in compounds, and the same pattern appears in words like "craftsman" and "tradesman." Readers might expect the "-s-" to be a plural marking, but it is a linking sound, not a sign that more than one oar is involved. The second half, "woman", has an unusually roundabout history. It descends from Old English "wīfmann", literally "wife-man" or "female person", where "wīf" meant "woman" and "mann" meant "person" in the general sense, not "male". Over time the first element was dropped, and "woman" was eventually reshaped into the "-woman" that now appears in compounds. The result is that "oarswoman" combines a word for a rowing implement with a word whose own roots once carried no sex-specific sense at all.

Synonyms: rower