MERCHANTMAN

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does merchantman mean? 

• MERCHANTMAN (noun)
  The noun MERCHANTMAN has 1 sense:

1. a cargo ship

  Familiarity information: MERCHANTMAN used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• MERCHANTMAN (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A cargo ship

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

bottom; freighter; merchant ship; merchantman

Context example:

they did much of their overseas trade in foreign bottoms

Hypernyms ("merchantman" is a kind of...):

cargo ship; cargo vessel (a ship designed to carry cargo)

 Context examples 

The vessel was an English merchantman, returning from Japan by the North and South seas; the captain, Mr. John Biddel, of Deptford, a very civil man, and an excellent sailor.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Rasping up on either side, with oars trailing to save them from snapping, they poured in a living torrent with horrid yell and shrill whoop upon the defenceless merchantman.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

This letter will reach England by a merchantman now on its homeward voyage from Archangel; more fortunate than I, who may not see my native land, perhaps, for many years.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

I left Lisbon the 24th day of November, in an English merchantman, but who was the master I never inquired.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

I left my poor wife big with child, and accepted an advantageous offer made me to be captain of the Adventurer, a stout merchantman of 350 tons: for I understood navigation well, and being grown weary of a surgeon’s employment at sea, which, however, I could exercise upon occasion, I took a skilful young man of that calling, one Robert Purefoy, into my ship.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)