ocean liner

ocean liner — noun

1. a large ship that regularly carries passengers across the sea, following a fixed

1.nounB1
Definition

a large ship that regularly carries passengers across the sea, following a fixed route and providing sleeping rooms, food, and entertainment for long journeys

Example

The Queen Mary ocean liner carried the Diaz family across the Atlantic in 1952.

named ship as subject with past tense

Kenji's father worked in the engine room of a luxury ocean liner for two decades.

Common collocations
  • board an ocean liner
  • sail on an ocean liner
  • ocean liner route
  • luxury ocean liner
  • retired ocean liner
Synonyms
  • cruise ship

    modern ships built for vacation travel rather than scheduled point-to-point transport; ocean liners are historically designed for regular passenger service between fixed ports

  • passenger ship

    broader term that includes any vessel carrying passengers, not limited to large transoceanic ships

Usage Note

Frequently used in historical contexts, as most regular passenger travel by sea has been replaced by air travel.

Common Mistakes

We took an ocean liner to the island for the weekend.
We took a ferry to the island for the weekend.
Ocean liners cross oceans on long international routes; ferries serve short distances between nearby ports.

Word family

  • liner
    nounB2
  • oceangoing
    adjectiveC1
  • cruise ship
    nounB1

Synonym discussion

Sense: noun/1

All three refer to ships that carry people, but they differ in purpose and scale. An ocean liner is built for scheduled long-distance travel across oceans, originally the main way to cross the Atlantic. A cruise ship is designed for vacationers who sail for pleasure, often stopping at several ports along a round trip. A passenger ship is a general term for any vessel that carries passengers, including smaller vessels. A ferry is a much shorter-range boat that shuttles people and vehicles across a narrow stretch of water — for example, between an island and the mainland. A modern cruise ship is not called an ocean liner because it offers holiday voyages rather than point-to-point transport; the Queen Mary 2 is one of the few ships still classified as an ocean liner.

cruise shippassenger shipferry ↗

Common collocations

Nouns

  • ocean liner company
  • ocean liner route
  • ocean liner passenger
  • ocean liner service

Prepositions

  • aboard an ocean liner
  • on an ocean liner

Etymology

GreekLatinFrenchEnglish

The term combines ocean, from Old French occean (via Latin oceanus, from Greek Ōkeanos 'the great river encircling the earth'), with liner, which by the 1830s referred to a ship belonging to a shipping 'line' — a company running scheduled services. Ocean liner came into use in the late 1800s as steamships began regular transatlantic crossings, distinguishing them from cargo vessels and short-range boats.