ship1
/ʃɪp
/noun
1A large boat for transporting people or goods by sea: the ship left England with a crew of 36 a cargo ship...
- Returning to Metro had taken him several months of stowing away on cargo ships and transports before finally reaching the city.
- There was every kind from little boats to huge cargo ships, from dilapidated sailboats to magnificent barges.
- The first two ships to set sail are just days away from British waters.
Synonyms
vessel, craft, boat
1.1A sailing vessel with a bowsprit and three or more square-rigged masts.In the early years of sailing ships, the European ships had a square sail design....
- It was fantastic to see all the ships sails at full mast, it looked like some 18th century sea battle.
- She found herself laying on the broken mast of the ship, with white sails and splinters of wood floating lazily around her.
1.2 informal Any boat, especially a racing boat.With a beam of 106 ft, the ships are the largest vessels that can fit through the Panama Canal....
- Luxury vessels and midsize ships sail from Vancouver, BC and Seattle.
- The air was thick with the smell of the ocean, sailors beginning to untie their ships for mornings of sailing and fishing.
2A spaceship.Fighters will be launched and recovered from space stations and ships....
- It believes that a circular spaceship carrying 1,500 smaller ships filled with bombs will at some indeterminate point destroy both Britain and America.
- Fighters kept their gravity well below Earth norm, the standard gravity found on ships and space stations.
3North American An aircraft.Clearly, the aircraft was one hot ship and it started piling up victories until tragedy struck at the 1937 Cleveland event.
verb (ships, shipping, shipped)
1 [with object and adverbial of direction] Transport (goods or people) on a ship: the wounded soldiers were shipped home...
- Of course, we'll cut their benefits, combat pay and make it difficult to ship their goods home from their overseas postings.
- Trade goods were shipped from French Atlantic ports to Quebec, then to Montreal, to be sold to small companies of traders licensed to deal with Native suppliers in the interior.
- If all else fails, the mafia hijack transports of cigarettes and alcohol and then ship the stolen goods into Britain.
1.1Send by some other means of transport or by mail: he was captured and shipped off to a labour camp the freight would be shipped by rail spare parts were quickly shipped out...
- The construction company is shipping the goods to the town and is asking its customers to help with the appeal for goods and building materials.
- When we speak of trade, we usually think of goods being shipped across borders.
- For the same reasons, many U.S. online merchants, particularly smaller companies, do not currently ship goods to Canada.
1.2 [no object] (ship out) (Of a naval force) go to sea from a home port: Bob got sick a week before we shipped out...
- There was a time when young men from small towns in Texas were forced to ship out to New York or Hollywood in order to fulfill their dream of seeing themselves on the big screen.
- Whatever one believes, the accident has left deep anxiety among sailors who have just graduated from naval training and are about to ship out.
- For troops who have just returned from overseas or for those about to ship out, the USO is a valuable source of help and support.
1.3 [no object] dated Embark on a ship: people wishing to get from London to New York ship at Liverpool
1.4(Of a sailor) take service on a ship: Jack, you shipped with the Admiral once, didn’t you?
2 [no object] (Of a product) be made available for purchase: the cellular phone is expected to ship at about $500 sometime this summer...
- Support for IP is expected to be added some time after the product ships later this year.
- Expect more to be revealed when the product ships in Japan in July.
- Instead of companies being tied to the MySQL General Public License the product will ship under a commercial license.
3 [with object] (Of a boat) take in (water) over the side.He told me afterwards the yacht was believed to be shipping water and the fate of the skipper was not known....
- Imagine a number of passengers in an overcrowded lifeboat which has begun to ship water.
- It is shipping water heavily, as last year's £247m loss demonstrates, and needs to throw half of its businesses overboard if it is to avoid being sunk by its debts.
4 [with object] Take (oars) from the rowlocks and lay them inside a boat.Once the boat had settled we shipped the oars, got out our lines, baited the hooks and dropped them over the gunwale....
- Slowly, she got into the rowing boat, shipped the oars and made her way across to the centre of the river.
- A hundred yards out he shipped the oars and started the motor.
4.1Fix (something such as a rudder or mast) in its place on a boat or ship.
Phrases
a sinking ship
ship a sea
take ship
that (or the) ship has sailed
when one's ship comes in (or home)
Derivatives
shipless
- Which, of course, went down like a lead Zeppelin with the shipless sailors in the pub.
- Its heroes, whose ghostly presences are often quoted in Kitaj's paintings, are the shipless helmsmen of modernism.
- After a tumultuous turn of events, the general cast of the show is nailed down as the three end up shipless on one of the large continents.
shippable
- In areas where the trusses exceeded maximum shippable weights, they were delivered with splices at the one-third points.
- There's always that in-between food - food that is edible but not shippable.
- Anything a forward-thinking architect could imagine was invented, manufactured, packaged, searchable on the Internet, purchasable with a credit card, and shippable overnight.
Origin
Old English scip (noun), late Old English scipian (verb), of Germanic origin; related to Dutch schip and German Schiff.
An Old English word related to Dutch schip and German Schiff. The expression when someone's ship comes in, ‘when someone's fortune is made’, is recorded from the mid 19th century. The safe arrival of a ship carrying a valuable cargo meant an instant financial reward for the owner and any others with shares in the enterprise. See also Bristol, half
Rhymes
ship2
/ʃɪp/informal
noun
A romantic pairing between two characters in a fictional series, often one that is supported or portrayed by fans rather than depicted in the series itself: the thing that I loved about the Mulder/Scully ship was that we knew so much about their characters...
- In January she dipped into the world of Harry/Draco, and has been writing in that ship ever since.
- This one's for fans of the Draco and Hermione ship.
- I'm sure that many will agree with me when I say that Mulder and Scully are the ship to end all ships.
verb (ships, shipping, shipped) [no object]
Support or have a particular interest in a romantic pairing between two characters in a fictional series, often when this relationship is one portrayed by fans rather than depicted in the series itself: I’m still shipping for Edward/Hermione [with object]: if you ship Paul and Sarah, then you’d better avert your eyes for this next part...
- I don’t ship Aragorn/Legolas, but there’s so much subtext in the movies with all the significant looks they exchange.
- I ship Aragorn and Boromir: it's so sad at his death and Aragorn kisses his forehead.
- Love Downton Abbey: specifially ship Mr Carson and Mrs Hughes.
Origin
Early 21st century: abbreviation of relationship.
- striker plate
- strike-slip fault
- strike someone off the roll
- strike someone out (or strike out)
- strike sparks off each other (or one another)
- strike up (or strike something up)
- strike while the iron is hot
- strike zone
- striking
- striking circle
- strikingly
- strikingness
- striking plate
- mail order
- mail order business
- mail order catalog
- mail order catalogue
- mail-out
- mail packet
- mail phaeton
- mail pouch
- mail rider
- mailroom
- mail route
- mail run