Steamship

How to spell steamship

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce steamship

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does steamship mean?

1. nounA ship propelled by one or more steam engines.

Steamship in a sentence

• Her grandparents emigrated aboard a transatlantic steamship in 1912.

• The museum restored an old cargo steamship that once carried coal.

Where does steamship come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a transparent English compound joining two old native words. 'Steam' comes from the Old English 'steam', meaning the vapour rising from hot water, and 'ship' descends from the Old English 'scip', a general word for a large boat, both rooted in the everyday Germanic vocabulary that English speakers have used for over a thousand years. The compound itself is a much younger creation, coined in the early 1800s once engineers began driving boats with steam engines rather than sails or oars. It rose to prominence alongside the transatlantic crossings of the 1830s, when steam-powered vessels first carried passengers and mail across the ocean on reliable schedules. Because both halves are familiar everyday words, the spelling is honest: there is no hidden letter, just two plain pieces written together as one.

How the word is built

• steam (vapour from boiling water)
• ship (seagoing vessel); compound noun