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Glite Dictionary
to wear ship

to wear ship

9.9
Turn a sailing boat away from the wind by moving the back through the wind, not the front
  • phrasal verb
  • Specialized
translation icon : virar el barco
  • As the wind shifted, the captain called out to the crew, urging them to wear ship immediately.

Examples

Synonyms

to change course
vsto wear ship
41 3.7

Turn a ship to a new direction to avoid danger

is a specific stern through wind maneuver rather than a general direction change
to wear round
vsto wear ship
  • Specialized
9.9

To turn the front of a boat away from the wind so it blows from the other side

turns by bringing the stern through the wind instead of turning the bow away

Surface Forms

wear ship infinitive
wore ship past
worn ship past participle
wearing ship present participle
wears ship third person singular

Morphology

wear + ship

This is a specialized nautical sense of 'wear' (to bring the stern through the wind) that is archaic/technical and unrelated to the common senses of 'wear' provided (to suffer wear or to wear clothing). The meaning cannot be compositionally derived from 'wear' + 'ship' and requires domain-specific maritime knowledge, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words would not predict it.

Etymology

The verb wear ship comes from old sailors: wear once meant to 'turn' the whole ship by swinging its back through the wind instead of its front. That's why it means 'to turn a sailing ship away from the wind'.