conn

UK/kɒn/US/kɑn/

conn noun: the duty of directing a ship, usually used with the verb to have or to take and accompanied by the article "the.".

Noun

conn (plural conns)

The duty of directing a ship, usually used with the verb to have or to take and accompanied by the article "the."
- The officer of the deck has the conn of the vessel; the captain took the conn when he reached the bridge.

Verb

conn (third-person singular simple present conns, present participle conning, simple past and past participle conned)

(transitive) To direct a ship; to superintend the steering of (a vessel); to watch the course of (a vessel) and direct the helmsman how to steer (especially through a channel, etc, rather than steer a compass direction).
- The pilot conned the ship safely into the harbor.
- “Ay,” says I, “you’ll allow me to steer, that is, hold the helm, but you’ll conn the ship, as they call it; that is, as at sea, a boy serves to stand at the helm, but he that gives him the orders is pilot.”1724, Daniel Defoe, Roxana: The Fortunate Mistress, chapter 8

Proper noun capitalized: CONN

CONN

(abbreviation) Abbreviation of Connecticut.

Forms of conn

Noun
plural	conns
alternative form	con
Verb
third-person singular present	conns
present participle	conning
past participle	conned
past	conned

Plural of conn: conns

Origin of conn

Variant of cond, from Middle English conduen, condien, from Anglo-Norman conduire, from Latin condūcō (“lead, bring or draw together”), from con- (“with, together”) + dūcō (“lead”). Doublet of conduce.

Words formed from conn

have the conn
take the conn
conning line
conning officer
conning tower

Words that rhyme with conn

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about conn

What does conn mean?: Conn means the duty of directing a ship, usually used with the verb to have or to take and accompanied by the article "the.".
What part of speech is conn?: Conn can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce conn?: Conn is pronounced /kɑn/ (US).
What is the plural of conn?: The plural of conn is conns.

Words near conn in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: conn (page history and authors); CONN (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: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “conn.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/conn. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.