sailor

Etymology

It is an altered spelling of sailer, "one who sails", formed from Middle English sailen + -er.^[2][3][4] Merriam-Webster also gives the Middle English verb as seilen.^[4] The verb sail continues Old English siglan, seglian, from the same Germanic source as the noun segl (“sail”).^[2][3] The spelling with -or arose in the 16th century,^[3] probably on the model of tailor, to set apart the name of a regular calling from the general agent noun "one that sails"; the OED notes that the distinction is not made in the early examples and was not fully settled before the 19th century.^[2][3] Johnson (1755) gave both spellings and noted that sailor was the more usual, sailer the more regular.^[5] Etymonline suggests that the late appearance of the word may partly be to avoid confusion with the Middle English saillour (“dancer, acrobat”), from sailleor, from Latin saliō (“to leap”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The form sailer, one who sails, is recorded from a1400, in the alliterative Alexander.^[2][3] In the spelling sailor, for a seaman, Merriam-Webster gives 1577 and Dictionary.com 1540–50,^[4][6] while the OED's first example is from Sir William Monson's Naval Tracts, written before 1642,^[2] and the Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English date it to the mid 17th century.^[7][8]

Semantic evolution

The word gradually replaced the older seaman and mariner as the everyday name for a man who works on a ship,^[3] and in a narrower sense it means a member of a ship's crew below the rank of officer.^[2][9] From the 17th to the 18th century it could also be used of a ship, in the sense of sailer, a vessel with particular sailing qualities, which the OED marks as obsolete.^[2][10] The phrase a good sailor, someone who does not suffer from seasickness, follows French être bon marin and is recorded from 1832, in Disraeli.^[2] The word became the name of several animals and plants: the paper nautilus (1776–1815), a soldier beetle in Northamptonshire dialect (1854) and the sailfish (1860).^[2][7] Etymonline dates the use of sailor as a modifier for clothing styles based on a sailor's dress to the 1870s,^[3] and the OED records it as short for sailor hat or sailor collar from 1890.^[2] In English dialects sailor's knot was a name for herb Robert, and sailor-buttons for the campions.^[11]

Timeline

• a1400 – sailer, one who sails.^[2]
• 1577 – Merriam-Webster's date for sailor, a seaman.^[4]
• a1642 – a seaman, a mariner.^[2]
• a1643 – of a ship, a sailer (obsolete).^[2]
• 1761 – the extended form sailorman.^[3]
• 1832 – a good sailor, one not prone to seasickness.^[2]
• 1890 – short for sailor hat or sailor collar.^[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A person who works on a ship as a member of its crew, especially one below the rank of officer; a seaman.
2. Anyone who sails, especially with regard to how well they cope with the sea: My brother is a poor sailor and stays below deck in rough weather.
3. Short for a sailor hat or other sailor-style garment.

Word family

• sailorlike
• sailorly
• nonsailor
• sailoring
• sailor collar

Related words

• sail
• sailer
• seaman
• mariner

Usage notes

Dictionary.com distinguishes sailor and seaman, used for someone whose work is on board ship, especially a crew member below the rank of petty officer, from the more literary mariner, while salt and tar are informal.^[6]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
6. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
10. ^ Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
11. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)