Steamer

How to spell steamer

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce steamer

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does steamer mean?

1. nounA pot or container that cooks food using steam rather than boiling water.
2. nounA boat or ship powered by a steam engine.
3. nounA handheld device that releases steam to smooth creases from clothing.

Steamer in a sentence

• She arranged the broccoli in the steamer above the simmering pan.

• The old steamer carried mail and passengers across the lake every morning.

• He ran the steamer over his suit jacket before the interview.

• A bamboo steamer keeps the dumplings tender without drying them out.

• Crowds gathered at the dock to watch the paddle steamer depart.

• A travel steamer packs more easily than a heavy iron.

Where does steamer come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The base word steam comes from the Old English steam, meaning vapour, smoke, or the moist heat rising from something hot, and it has close cousins across the old Germanic languages, including the Dutch stoom. For centuries steam referred broadly to any rising vapour, but the word took on huge new importance during the Industrial Revolution when engines began to harness the pressure of boiling water. The agent suffix -er, also native to English, simply turns a base into the thing that performs or uses the action, much as bake becomes baker. So steamer was coined in the early 1800s to name a vessel driven by a steam engine, and it later spread to any device that works by steam, such as a pot for cooking food or a handheld machine for pressing clothes. The spelling is reassuringly regular: keep the silent reading of the ea pair from steam and add a plain -er.

How the word is built

• steam (vapour, from Old English steam)
• -er (agent/instrument suffix: a thing that does or uses)