bowsprit
/ˈbəʊspɹɪt/
bowsprit noun: a spar projecting over the prow of a sailing vessel to provide the means of adding sail surface.
Noun
bowsprit (plural bowsprits)
- A spar projecting over the prow of a sailing vessel to provide the means of adding sail surface.
- There lay the Ghost, bow on to the beach, her splintered bowsprit projecting over the sand, her tangled spars rubbing against her side to the lift of the crooning waves. Something must be done, must be done.1904, Jack London, chapter 32, in The Sea-Wolf (Macmillan’s Standard Library), New York, N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap, →OCLC
Forms of bowsprit
| plural | bowsprits |
|---|---|
| alternative form | bolesprit |
| alternative form | boltsprit |
Origin of bowsprit
First attested in late 13th century. Probably borrowed from Middle Low German bochspret, from boch (“bow of a ship”) + spret (“pole”) (related to Old English spreot and English sprout).
Words formed from bowsprit
Questions about bowsprit
- What does bowsprit mean?
- Bowsprit means a spar projecting over the prow of a sailing vessel to provide the means of adding sail surface.
- What part of speech is bowsprit?
- Bowsprit is a noun.
- How do you pronounce bowsprit?
- Bowsprit is pronounced /ˈbəʊspɹɪt/.
- What is the plural of bowsprit?
- The plural of bowsprit is bowsprits.
Words near bowsprit in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: bowsprit (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-bowsprit.wav.
Cite this entry: “bowsprit.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bowsprit. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.