before the mast

adjective

Having living quarters in the forecastle of a vessel

“Before making lieutenant, he sailed before the mast for five years”

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Meanings

adjectivebefore the mast (not comparable)
  1. literallynot comparableHaving living quarters in the forecastle of a vessel
  2. not comparableDescribing seamen rather than officers

    Before making lieutenant, he sailed before the mast for five years

    1 more example

    [...] but under certain circumstances (night watches on a whaling ground) the command of the ship’s deck is also his; therefore the grand political maxim of the sea demands, that he should nominally live apart from the men before the mast, and be in some way distinguished as their professional superior; [...]

    1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “chapter 33”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC
Cite this entry
APA

before the mast. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/before%20the%20mast

MLA

“before the mast.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/before%20the%20mast. Accessed November 5, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “before the mast,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/before%20the%20mast.

Source: before the mast on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.