Skipper Meaning
/ˈskɪp.ə/Definition, CEFR level B2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
nounThe master of a ship.
nounA coach, director, or other leader.
Sentence Examples
Let's call the dog Skipper.
Tom likes to skipper small sailboats.
Would you like to skipper for a while?
CEFR Practice Quiz
The experienced sailor took the role of ____ for the fishing boat during the storm.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The ____ of the small fishing boat decided to return to the harbor as the storm approached.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English skippere, skyppere, scippere, borrowed from Middle Dutch scipper, schipper, from Old Dutch *skipāri, from Proto-Germanic *skipārijaz. Piecewise doublet of shipper, from ship + -er.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"The skipper Mr. Cooke had hired at Far Harbor was a God-fearing man with a luke warm interest in his new billet and employer, and had only been prevailed upon to take charge of the yacht after the offer of an emolument equal to half a year's sea pay of an ensign in the navy."
— 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter X, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:
"It is standard practice for search and rescue authorities to ask other vessels in the area to assist. Usually, this is done. The weather on the night of 31 December was too atrocious, and when at 11pm the Coast Guard asked the crabber Ruff & Reddy to head to the scene, its skipper refused, as a skipper has a right to do if he believes conditions to be too treacherous."
— 2025 October 21, Rose George, “‘I knew in my head we were dying’: the last voyage of the Scandies Rose”, in The Guardian:
"But even the return of skipper Steven Gerrard from a six-week injury layoff could not inspire Liverpool"
— 2010 December 29, Sam Sheringham, “Liverpool 0-1 Wolverhampton”, in BBC Sport:
"Tourist subs, which could once be skippered by anyone with a U.S. Coast Guard captain’s license"
— 2019, Tony Perrottet, “A Deep Dive Into the Plans to Take Tourists to the ‘Titanic’”, in Smithsonian Magazine:
"Blue skippers in sunny hours ope and shut
Where wormwood and grunsel flowers by the cart ruts […]"
— c. 1864, John Clare, We passed by green closes:
Explore More B2 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The experienced sailor took the role of ____ for the fishing boat during the storm.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The ____ of the small fishing boat decided to return to the harbor as the storm approached.