STEERAGE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Steerage

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

Listen

noun

Steerage n.

The act or practice of steering, or directing; as, the steerage of a ship. "He left the city, and, in a most tempestuous season, forsook the helm and steerage of the commonwealth."

(Naut.)

(a)

The effect of the helm on a ship; the manner in which an individual ship is affected by the helm.

(b)

The hinder part of a vessel; the stern. (R.)

(c)

Properly, the space in the after part of a vessel, under the cabin, but used generally to indicate any part of a vessel having the poorest accommodations and occupied by passengers paying the lowest rate of fare.

Direction; regulation; management; guidance. "He that hath the steerage of my course."

That by which a course is directed. (R.) "Here he hung on high, The steerage of his wings."

Steerage passenger, a passenger who takes passage in the steerage of a vessel.

See images of 'Steerage'

Etymology of 'Steerage'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Steerage" Quotes from Famous Books

... the bold Stephen Decatur in 1804 when he cut out and set fire to the Philadelphia, which had fallen into the hands of pirates at Tripoli, and helping Thomas Truxtun in 1799-1800 when the Constellation whipped the Frenchmen, L'Insurgente and La Vengeance. In wardroom or steerage almost every man could tell of engagements in which he had behaved with credit. Trained in the school of hard knocks, the sailor knew the value of discipline and gunnery, of the smart ship and the willing crew, while on land the soldier rusted and ...

— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine

... on the wharf—the rushing on board of belated freight and baggage—the crush of passengers and their friends on deck, or down in the cabins, where partings were being drunk in wine; the crowd of steerage passengers forward, trying to keep out of the way of the sailors, and at the same time to salute or converse with their friends on the dock; the rattle and bustle all around; the blow of steam from the impatient boilers; the sharp, brisk orders of the junior ...

— The Boy Nihilist - or, Young America in Russia • Allan Arnold

... from Liverpool two maiden ladies in the room next mine made representations to the captain which resulted in my removal to the steerage. They couldn't consent, they said, to listen to the shrieks of the ...

— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs

... I succeeded I should come back to bring her plenty and happiness, but if I failed I should never look upon her face again. I kissed her hand and the baby once, and slipped out of the room. Three nights after I was out at sea, bound for Melbourne, a steerage passenger with a digger's tools for my baggage, and seven shillings in my pocket. After three and a half years of hard and bitter struggles on the goldfields, at last I struck it rich, realised twenty thousand pounds, and ...

— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.

... not advisable to interfere with the favourite of the Lady, and especially since she had brought the estate into the present family. Master Jasper Wingate was a man experienced, as he often boasted, in the ways of great families, and knew how to keep the steerage even when the wind and tide chanced ...

— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

More quotes...