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In Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner, an old seaman tells of how, by shooting a friendly albatross, he had brought storms and disaster to his ship, and how as punishment his shipmates hung the great seabird around the mariner's neck and made him wear it until it rotted. The word mariner has occasionally been used to mean simply "explorer", as in the famous Mariner spaceflights in the 1960s and '70s, the first to fly close to Mars, Venus, and Mercury.
Examples of mariner in a Sentence
the ancient Phoenicians were outstanding mariners who explored and colonized much of the eastern Mediterranean
Recent Examples on the Web
Nearby mariners reported smoke rising from where the Fiorella was last seen.
—
Foreign Correspondent, Los Angeles Times, 15 June 2026
Although Dans had never been to Greenland, his grandfather had served there as a merchant mariner during the Second World War, and had later helped construct Pituffik Space Base.
—Ben Taub, New Yorker, 15 June 2026
Dow also said the safest way to make it out of a channel is to follow the markers, which experienced mariners know to look for.
—David Goodhue, Miami Herald, 11 June 2026
At sea, celestial navigation, which came into its own in the late 1700s, requires algorithms to crunch the inputs from a sextant that allows mariners to determine their position on the surface of a sphere.
—Scott Neuman, NPR, 11 June 2026
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Foreign Correspondent, Los Angeles Times, 15 June 2026
Although Dans had never been to Greenland, his grandfather had served there as a merchant mariner during the Second World War, and had later helped construct Pituffik Space Base.
—Ben Taub, New Yorker, 15 June 2026
Dow also said the safest way to make it out of a channel is to follow the markers, which experienced mariners know to look for.
—David Goodhue, Miami Herald, 11 June 2026
At sea, celestial navigation, which came into its own in the late 1700s, requires algorithms to crunch the inputs from a sextant that allows mariners to determine their position on the surface of a sphere.
—Scott Neuman, NPR, 11 June 2026
See All Example Sentences for mariner
Cite this Entry
“Mariner.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mariner. Accessed 24 Jun. 2026.
Copy CitationKids Definition
mariner
noun
mar·i·ner
ˈmar-ə-nər 
: one who navigates or assists in navigating a ship : sailor
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