Etymologically
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shipyard

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 1 November 2026 at 00:47. This address is a permanent link to this version.
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Pronunciation

  • US: /ˈʃɪpˌjɑɹd/[1]

Etymology

It is a compound from English ship + yard, with yard in its sense of an enclosed piece of ground.[2][3][4][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

A large enclosed area beside the sea or a major river in which ships are built or repaired: 1644, in E. Felton's Engins invented to save Blood and Moneyes.[2]

Semantic evolution

The OED's revised entry (2025) dates the word to 1644,[2] and Merriam-Webster to 1647;[6] older dictionaries placed it at the end of the 17th century: about 1700 in Etymonline and the first edition of the OED, 1690–1700 in Dictionary.com, the late 17th century in the Shorter Oxford.[4][7][5][3] Smyth's Sailor's Word-Book (1867) treats it as a synonym of dockyard.[8] From 1943 it was used attributively in shipyard eye, an epidemic form of viral keratoconjunctivitis.[7][3]

Timeline

  • 1644 – an enclosed area by the sea or a river where ships are built or repaired.[2] Merriam-Webster dates it to 1647, Etymonline to about 1700.[6][4]
  • 1943 – attributive, in shipyard eye, a viral eye disease.[7]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A place, usually an enclosed area beside the sea or a river, where ships are built or repaired: She worked as a welder in the shipyard during the war.[2][6][9]
  2. shipyard eye: an epidemic form of keratoconjunctivitis caused by a virus.[7][3]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  6. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  7. ^ a b c d Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ Smyth, W. H. (1867), The Sailor's Word-Book: An Alphabetical Digest of Nautical Terms, London: Blackie and Son
  9. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin