The Collaborative International Dictionary
merchant marine \mer"chant ma*rine"\, n. The ships owned by nationals of a particular country that are engaged in civilian commerce; also, the personnel operating those vessels. Distinguished from the navy, which contains the vessels of war.
Wiktionary
n. ships and crews dedicated to commercial, rather than military, purposes.
WordNet
n. the crew of a merchant vessel
conveyance provided by the ships belonging to one country or industry [syn: shipping, cargo ships, merchant vessels]
Usage examples of "merchant marine".
That was a serious enough diversion of manpower, but the Manticoran merchant marine was the fourth largest in the galaxy.
Thomas Wolfe, when he was in the merchant marine, purchased a used copy of James Joyce's Ulysses, which came close to being the size of the Manhattan phone book.
Koga, a professional, confident, and supremely competent officer of the merchant marine who demanded absolute punctuality of himself and of his crew, had no doubts whatsoever that they would arrive in port on schedule.
I know there are some people back home who would argue that it's in our true strategic interest to point the pirates here at anybody who competes with our own merchant marine, but they're idiots.
I know there are some people back home who would argue that its in our true strategic interest to point the pirates here at anybody who competes with our own merchant marine, but theyre idiots.
She fought a hit-and-run campaign against the Peeps merchant marine for over a T-year before they finally cornered her and pounded Dague to scrap.
It was times like these that the Merchant Marine spacer's feelings of superiority over Space Command became obvious.
His father, a tailor, had taken to making naval and merchant marine uniforms.
So Avram had grown up with French schooling and French friends, and had gone into the French merchant marine as a cabin boy, working his way up to a chief engineer's certificate.