Other forms: sailors
A sailor is somebody who works on a ship. A merchant sailor, an old sailor, sailors on shore leave.
It covers both the trade and the navy, and it covers anybody who sails for pleasure too — a keen sailor, a good sailor. That last phrase has a specific meaning worth knowing: a good sailor is somebody who does not get seasick, and it says nothing about their skill. Note seaman and mariner, which are more formal and more nautical, and that in the Royal Navy the ranks below officer are ratings rather than sailors.
1nounsailorSomebody who works on a ship.
“Three sailors were still on board.”
synonyms: seaman, mariner
2nounsailsSomebody who sails a boat for pleasure.
“She has been a sailor since she was six.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
sailor is a person who works at sea.
Sailor is simply sail plus the -er that makes a doer, though the spelling settled on -or in the eighteenth century by analogy with Latin nouns like tailor and bachelor. Before that both spellings were used freely.
Middle English
sailer
English, today
sailor
Alteration of earlier sailer, from Middle English sailer, sayler, saylere, equivalent to sail + -or. Cognate with German Segler (“sailor”). Eclipsed non-native Middle English marinel, marynell (“sailor”) borrowed from Old French marinel (“sailor”). See mariner.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA