Skowner

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A sailing vessel with two or more masts whose sails are set lengthwise along the keel rather than square across it
2. An older spelling for a sailing ship carrying fore-and-aft sails on at least two masts, a rig suited to coastal trade
3. A type of wind-driven vessel distinguished by its fore-and-aft sails spread on two or more masts

Etymology: A skowner is a fore-and-aft rigged vessel with two or more masts, and its name is one of the few English ship words whose origin is traced to a specific moment. The word first appears in the 1690s and is generally said to come from a Dutch term, "schoener," meaning the same thing. The traditional story, recorded in American sources from the 1700s, holds that the first such ship built in Gloucester, Massachusetts, was launched around 1713 and that a bystander, watching it slide down the ways, exclaimed "See how she schoons!" The verb "to scoon," meaning to skim or glide over water, is attested in Scottish dialect, which makes the anecdote plausible, but the story is a later tale and cannot be confirmed as the true source. The more reliable history runs through Dutch. "Schoener" is probably related to the Low German and Dutch verbs for skimming or gliding, and the rig it named was popular with Dutch shipbuilders, who used it for coastal and cargo trade. English sailors borrowed the term and the design together, and by the eighteenth century American builders had made the schooner a distinctive type of their own, prized for speed and for handling with a small crew.

Synonyms: schooner