tramp steamer
1
8.6
- noun
- /træmp ˈstiːmər/
- Archaic
:
buque de carga
- You know in Florida the way you see tramp steamers offshore in the Gulf Stream, and the police helicopters skimming back and forth above the water?
Examples
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We're going on a very exclusive, a very exclusive... tramp steamer.
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He was a chef on a tramp steamer.
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You know, tramp steamers and such.
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"Adventures on a tramp steamer."
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How many stories are there of the boys who took off on tramp steamers and whatnot at the age of 12?
Blog text (18) -
It took two weeks on a tramp steamer from Russia.
Fiction book (1990) -
Tramp steamer, big, black.
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In his earlier years, he went from working as a purser on a tramp steamer to writing for Fortune magazine on a variety of non-financial topics.
Blog text (20) -
Traveling in Europe with other Harvard alums the year after graduation, he suggested to one that they should take a tramp steamer back to America and arrive on the eve of the Harvard-Yale game.
Academic text (2002) -
The tourists hired a tramp steamer to explore the remote islands without a set schedule.
Synonyms
3
8.9
A cargo ship that carries goods between ports without a regular route
How Scheduled
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound is compositionally predictable: 'tramp' (a merchant ship that takes cargo on irregular voyages) combined with 'steamer' (a steam-powered vessel) yields a steamship that operates irregularly and for hire. Although the nautical sense of 'tramp' is somewhat specialized, once that constituent meaning is known the overall MWE meaning is transparent to learners.
Etymology
Tramp steamer comes from two images: a tramp (a person who wanders) and a steamer (a steam-powered ship). These ships moved from port to port looking for cargo, so the name now means 'a ship you can hire that goes wherever cargo is available and has no fixed route'.