seafarer

C2+ Topic:People & Society

US /ˈsiˌfɛrɚ/ UK /ˈsiːˌfeərə/ See IPA manual

Meanings

1

noun
a person who travels by sea, especially a sailor

The old seafarer told tales of storms off the Cape of Good Hope.

Thesaurus

Synonyms

1 noun · a person who travels by... sailor mariner seaman navigator voyager

Opposites

landlubber

Word family

Related forms seafaring seaman wayfarer

Etymology

From Old English 'sǣfaru' and the compound of 'sea' (Old English 'sǣ') + 'farer', agent noun of 'fare' ('to travel', Old English 'faran').

sǣ Old English faran Old English

View etymology graph ->

Topics

People & Society Word Formation & Derivatives

External links

# seafarer

**Type:** Word
**Level:** C2+
**Part of speech:** noun
**IPA (US):** /ˈsiˌfɛrɚ/
**IPA (UK):** /ˈsiːˌfeərə/

## Meanings
1. a person who travels by sea, especially a sailor

## Examples
- The old seafarer told tales of storms off the Cape of Good Hope.

## Synonyms
- sailor
- mariner
- seaman
- navigator
- voyager

## Antonyms
- landlubber

## Related Forms
- seafaring
- seaman
- wayfarer

## Roots and Affixes
- Root: sǣ
- Root: faran

## Etymology
From Old English 'sǣfaru' and the compound of 'sea' (Old English 'sǣ') + 'farer', agent noun of 'fare' ('to travel', Old English 'faran').

## AI Etymology
Seafarer comes from Old English 'sǣfaru' and the compound of 'sea' (Old English 'sǣ') + 'farer', agent noun of 'fare' ('to travel', Old English 'faran'). The historical chain includes Old English sǣ and Old English faran. Older glosses in the chain include "sǣfaru", "sea", "sǣ", and "farer", which help explain the semantic range of the modern word. Morphologically, seafarer is best read as compound and borrowing, yielding an English noun shaped by both form history and later usage. In current English it functions as a noun, with the sense "a person who travels by sea, especially a sailor". related forms include seafaring, seaman, and wayfarer. The result is an English noun whose etymology preserves the older forms while supporting the word's specialized modern meaning.

## Topics
- People & Society
- Word Formation & Derivatives

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