Schooner

3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Schooner \Schoon"er\, n. [See the Note below. Cf. {Shun}.]
     (Naut.)
     Originally, a small, sharp-built vessel, with two masts and
     fore-and-aft rig. Sometimes it carried square topsails on one
     or both masts and was called a {topsail schooner}. About
     1840, longer vessels with three masts, fore-and-aft rigged,


     came into use, and since that time vessels with four masts
     and even with six masts, so rigged, are built. Schooners with
     more than two masts are designated three-masted schooners,
     four-masted schooners, etc. See Illustration in Appendix.
     [1913 Webster]
  
     Note: The first schooner ever constructed is said to have
           been built in Gloucester, Massachusetts, about the year
           1713, by a Captain Andrew Robinson, and to have
           received its name from the following trivial
           circumstance: When the vessel went off the stocks into
           the water, a bystander cried out,"O, how she scoons!"
           Robinson replied, " A scooner let her be;" and, from
           that time, vessels thus masted and rigged have gone by
           this name. The word scoon is popularly used in some
           parts of New England to denote the act of making stones
           skip along the surface of water. The Scottish scon
           means the same thing. Both words are probably allied to
           the Icel. skunda, skynda, to make haste, hurry, AS.
           scunian to avoid, shun, Prov. E. scun. In the New
           England records, the word appears to have been
           originally written scooner. Babson, in his "History of
           Gloucester," gives the following extract from a letter
           written in that place Sept. 25, 1721, by Dr. Moses
           Prince, brother of the Rev. Thomas Prince, the annalist
           of New England: "This gentleman (Captain Robinson) was
           first contriver of schooners, and built the first of
           that sort about eight years since."
           [1913 Webster]

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Schooner \Schoon"er\, n. [D.]
     A large goblet or drinking glass, -- used for lager beer or
     ale. [U.S.]
     [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  schooner
       n 1: a large beer glass
       2: sailing vessel used in former times