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boatswain

[boh-suhn; spelling pron. boht-sweyn]

Origin

Boatswain's www.supsale.com/ Save On Boatswain's - Discounts Compare Boatswain's Online

Bosun www.ask.com/Bosun Find Bosun Q&A Results Bosun

noun

a warrant officer on a warship, or a petty officer on a merchant vessel, in charge of rigging, anchors, cables, etc.

Also, bo's'n, bosun.

Origin:
1400–50; late Middle English bote-swayn. See boat, swain

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Link To Boatswain

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Boatswain is always a great word to know.

So is ort. Does it mean:

a scrap or morsel of food left at a meal.

a gadget; dingus; thingumbob.

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Collins

World English Dictionary

boatswain, bosun or bo's'n (ˈbəʊs^ən)

—n
	a petty officer on a merchant ship or a warrant officer on a warship who is responsible for the maintenance of the ship and its equipment

[Old English bātswegen; see boat, swain]

bosun, bosun or bo's'n

—n

[Old English bātswegen; see boat, swain]

bo's'n, bosun or bo's'n

—n

[Old English bātswegen; see boat, swain]

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

boatswain

mid-15c., from late O.E. batswegen, from bat "boat" + O.N. sveinn "boy" (see swain). Phonetic spelling bo'sun is attested from 1868.

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Related Words

bo's'n boatswain bird boatswain's pipe

bosun petty officer tropic bird

Matching Quote

"I was once reproved by a minister who was driving a poor beast to some meeting-house horse-sheds among the hills of New Hampshire, because I was bending my steps to a mountain-top on the Sabbath, instead of a church, when I would have gone farther than he to hear a true word spoken on that or any day. He declared that I was "breaking the Lord's fourth commandment," and proceeded to enumerate, in a sepulchral tone, the disasters which had befallen him whenever he had done any ordinary work on the Sabbath. He really thought that a god was on the watch to trip up those men who followed any secular work on this day, and did not see that it was the evil conscience of the workers that did it. The country is full of this superstition, so that when one enters a village, the church, not only really but from association, is the ugliest looking building in it, because it is the one in which human nature stoops the lowest and is most disgraced. Certainly, such temples as these shall ere long cease to deform the landscape. There are few things more disheartening and disgusting than when you are walking the streets of a strange village on the Sabbath, to hear a preacher shouting like a boatswain in a gale of wind, and thus harshly profaning the quiet atmosphere of the day. You fancy him to have taken off his coat, as when men are about to do hot and dirty work."

-Henry David Thoreau

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boatswain

boat·swain