Crossword clues for shipmate
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Shipmate \Ship"mate`\, n. One who serves on board of the same ship with another; a fellow sailor.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Wiktionary
n. 1 (context nautical English) A fellow sailor serving on the same ship as another. 2 (context nautical informal English) Any sailor (when used as a form of address by a sailor).
WordNet
n. an associate on the same ship with you
Wikipedia
A shipmate is literally a mate on one's own ship (i.e., a member of the same ship).
In English-Speaking navies and the United States Coast Guard, the term 'shipmate' is used among sailors as a generic moniker. It is used in the third person by a member of a ship's crew to describe another member, or in the second person when referring to any other Naval service member.
In the United States Navy "shipmate" is most accurately a term used by anyone in the Navy to reference anyone else in the Navy. It can be used with a range of connotations- most often as an expression of camaraderie, but also as a respectful way to address other crew members whose rank or naval rating is not obvious. It can even be used in a derogatory manner. It is used both on land and at sea and it is used among Naval service members without regard to whether they are in fact members of the same ship. The term is used so abundantly in the American Navy that the inflection, context, and tone of the speaker can connote more meaning than the term itself.
In the United States Navy, recruits are indoctrinated with heavy use of the term immediately upon beginning training at Recruit Training Command (or 'boot camp'). There, they use the term abundantly to refer to their peers in all but the least formal settings. Notably, recruits use the term superfluously and with enthusiasm to sound off to their peers in scenarios when referencing another person by name or title would be otherwise unnecessary. For example, a recruit in the chow line will add "shipmate" after identifying each item of food he or she wishes fellow recruits to place on his or her tray ("potatoes, Shipmate!", "green beans, Shipmate!", "bread, Shipmate!" etc.). In turn, the recruits serving his or her food will repeat the expression as the recruit moves down the line "potatoes, Shipmate!", "green beans, Shipmate!", "bread, Shipmate!"... to confirm that they understood the commands. It is used so abundantly during this stage of a sailor's training that it can sound curious to a new recruit or a visitor. The term is almost never used by superiors to refer to inferiors during recruit training except ironically or in a derogatory tone. Sometimes the term is modified to connote the derogation more explicitly, as in "Shipwreck" in reference to someone who is messy or fails to maintain a military bearing. As the extreme hierarchical distinctions in recruit training tend to fade once the recruit joins the regular Navy, so do the above distinctions. It is not uncommon to hear an Admiral or Captain refer to his lowest subordinates as "shipmate" in order to express camaraderie. Inversely, it is not uncommon for peers to refer to one another as "shipwreck" or use a vocal inflection that connotes derogation, usually with an accent on the "-mate."
The term is often used in a follow-on training status such as "A" School from superiors to their subordinates to point out deficiencies, usually when rank of the subordinate is not easily identified. An example would be "Hey shipmate! Fix your uniform!" The use of the term in this context would be similar to a division commander referring to a recruit as "Recruit".
Although the term is not commonly used outside maritime scenarios, it is often used by Navy veterans toward one another as a means to reminisce or bond about shared experience.
Usage examples of "shipmate".
His shipmate from the Bucephalas was known to like a scrap and he might just forget himself and belt the premier, which would result in a hanging.
But he got the impression that a majority of his shipmates probably did not know much about the Cabiri either.
In allowing for her awkwardness, Barnes and Dasi were doing the jobs Daniel and their shipmates expected them to do.
They just walked aft to look, and stood, silent or talking quietly, before the cavern three decks deep of blackened, twisted metal where their shipmates had been blasted out of their young lives.
He added, with a strange shyness, that he had collected William from his home to join him to a ship in Deptford, where they would indeed be shipmates.
There was on board a Hebridean woman named Thorgunna, of whom her shipmates said that she owned some costly things, the like of which would be difficult to find in Iceland.
I told you, some other boys as well as myself, who belonged to the Indiaman, and we kept very much together, not only because we were more of an age, but because we had been shipmates so long.
He found himself sobbing helplessly at the loss of all his shipmates, the realization that he hated Hitler for the first time in a flesh and blood visceral way for causing all this when he could be sitting in a miserable damp drafty factory by the Quinnipiac River in Fair Haven toiling over a Seth Thomas engine and listening to the alcoholic shop supervisor rambling about not taking a full hour for lunch .
Stephen, speaking to a grey-haired seaman from Shelmerston, a shipmate on former voyages and a member of the Sethian community, renowned for truthfulness.
Here I stood, my hair chopped and shaggy, my hands still scarred from the burns in the pod, my clothing more like a medieval forester than a modern spacefarer, and standing here as I was, with my shipmates behind me in very much the same clothing, with the same shag and the same gauntness and the same hopes, I felt prouder than I ever had before.
Ilna knew there was a current because of what the sailors had told her and from the way bubbles of foam slowly drifted right to left, but Nabarbi and Tellura on the portside oars were compensating for it by taking longer strokes than their shipmates to starboard.
Both native Colchians looked uncomfortable, as if realizing they ought to have known better, and to have warned their shipmates in advance.
But all systems were working, the artificial gravity cushioning him and his shipmate against all the gees of acceleration that he poured on.
Grimes had been shipmates she had been a lieutenant while Grimes was only a lowly ensign.
A stale rehash of handball scores was no substitute for seeing the interdivisional games, and electronic checkers with your shipmate was damn sure no substitute for sex.