supracargo
Syllables: su·pra·car·goUK/ˈsuːpɹəˌkɑːɡəʊ//ˈsupɹəˌkɑɹɡoʊ/
supracargo noun: an officer on board a merchant ship who is in charge of the cargo and its sale; also, if there are two of such officers, the senior one, the other being the subcargo.

Noun
supracargo (plural supracargos or supracargoes)
- An officer on board a merchant ship who is in charge of the cargo and its sale; also, if there are two of such officers, the senior one, the other being the subcargo.
- In a ſtorm, vvhen the Ship is in danger of periſhing, it is not lavvful for the Maſter at his ovvn diſcretion, vvithout advice firſt had vvith the Merchants or their Factors or Supracargoes, to caſt goods overboard for the Lightning the Veſſel, or to Cut dovvn the Maſt, or the like; but in caſe...1661, John Godolphin, “The Introduction, or, Preface to the Ensuing Treatise”, in Συνηγορος θαλασσιος [Synēgoros Thalassios]. A View of the Admiral Jurisdiction. […] [Maritime Lawyer], London: […]...
- [S]he vvill let a Man freely enter, ſo that he be no Piqueroon or Caper, but an honeſt Merchant, that vvill not only largely pay for the Freight, but make her Supracargo too.1675, R[ichard] H[ead], “The Wheedles, of an Handsome Hostess”, in Proteus Redivivus: Or The Art of Wheedling, or Insinuation. […], London: […] W. D[owning] […], →OCLC, pages 332–333
- Synonyms:
- supercargo
- An agent or representative of a company in charge of its overseas business.
supracargo meaning in Arabic
supracargo in Arabic
- officer on board a merchant ship in charge of the cargo and its sale
- إِشْتِيَام ʔištiyām
Examples of supracargo in a sentence
- The Company are ſo ſenſible of this, that they have been more particular in their Orders to their Supracargos about it, than hovv to chooſe vvhat is proper for them; […]1711, Charles Lockyer, chapter V, in An Account of the Trade in India: […], London: […] [F]or the author, and sold by Samuel Crouch, […]...
- Why a chief supracargo does not come from the said nation, in place of a foreign eye being sent?1842 April, “Art[icle] I. Retrospection, or a Review of Public Occurrences in China during the Last Ten Years, from January 1st, 1832, to...
- These ‘supracargos’ (literally ‘over the cargo’, though the term was soon corrupted to ‘supercargo’) were to oversee the procurement of the various goods which the ship was to carry back to London.2015, Markman Ellis, Richard Coulton, Matthew Mauger, “The Tea Trade with China”, in Empire of Tea: The Asian Leaf that Conquered the...
Synonyms of supracargo
Forms of supracargo
| plural | supracargos |
|---|---|
| plural | supracargoes |
Origin of supracargo
From English supra- (prefix meaning ‘above, over’) + borrowed from Italian sopracargo, a dialectal form of sopraccarico, from sopra- (prefix meaning ‘above, over’) + carico (“cargo”) (from caricare (“to load; to take aboard”), from Late Latin carricāre, the present active infinitive of carricō (“to load”), from Latin carrus (“cart, wagon; cartload”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ḱers- (“to run”)) + -icō (suffix forming regular first-conjugation verbs)).
Words formed from supracargo
Questions about supracargo
- What does supracargo mean?
- Supracargo means an officer on board a merchant ship who is in charge of the cargo and its sale; also, if there are two of such officers, the senior one, the other being the subcargo.
- What is supracargo in Arabic?
- Supracargo in Arabic is إِشْتِيَام (ʔištiyām). See Supracargo meaning in Arabic.
- How do you use supracargo in a sentence?
- The Company are ſo ſenſible of this, that they have been more particular in their Orders to their Supracargos about it, than hovv to chooſe vvhat is proper for them; […]
- What part of speech is supracargo?
- Supracargo is a noun.
- How do you pronounce supracargo?
- Supracargo is pronounced /ˈsuːpɹəˌkɑːɡəʊ/ (UK).
- What is the plural of supracargo?
- The plural of supracargo is supracargos.
Words near supracargo in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: supracargo (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)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-supracargo.wav.
Cite this entry: “supracargo.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/supracargo. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
