mariner

noun

mar·​i·​ner ˈmer-ə-nər 

ˈma-rə-

: a person who navigates or assists in navigating a ship : seaman, sailor

Did you know?

In Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner, an old seaman tells of how, by shooting a friendly albatross, he had brought storms and disaster to his ship, and how as punishment his shipmates hung the great seabird around the mariner's neck and made him wear it until it rotted. The word mariner has occasionally been used to mean simply "explorer", as in the famous Mariner spaceflights in the 1960s and '70s, the first to fly close to Mars, Venus, and Mercury.

Synonyms of mariner

• sailor
• navigator

Examples of mariner in a Sentence

the ancient Phoenicians were outstanding mariners who explored and colonized much of the eastern Mediterranean

Recent Examples on the Web

There is now a backlog of nearly 19,000 merchant mariner credentials – representing roughly 10% of the entire workforce – along with roughly 5,000 medical certifications. —Nicole Sganga, CBS News, 30 Apr. 2026

My friends had made the man sound an ancient mariner, an invalid widower, near dead from a lurid litany of injuries. —Literary Hub, 29 Apr. 2026

Since the beginning of the war, nearly 800 vessels have been stuck in a holding pattern near the passage, impacting about 20,000 mariners. —Sasha Rogelberg, Fortune, 28 Apr. 2026

Danielson remembers Lind, an affable old mariner then in his seventies, complimenting them on their docking skills, and introducing himself as the owner of the Robert Gray, a 125-foot Army Corps of Engineers research vessel built in 1936. —Tessa Stuart, Rolling Stone, 23 Apr. 2026

Word History

Etymology

Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Medieval Latin marinarius, from marinus

First Known Use

14th century, in the meaning defined above

Phrases Containing mariner

• mariner's compass

Kids Definition

mariner

noun

mar·​i·​ner ˈmar-ə-nər 

: one who navigates or assists in navigating a ship : sailor