Meanings
plural hermaphrodite brigs
- nauticalA two-masted sailing ship which has square sails on the foremast combined with a schooner rig on the mainmast (triangular topsail over a gaff mainsail).
About noon we saw a vessel on a wind to leeward of us, which was a source of great delight to us all, and we bore down to her. We soon made her out to be an hermaphrodite brig, under her close-reefed topsails and trysails.
1846, Frederick Marryat, The PrivateersmanSynonyms: brig-schooner, schooner-brig
Synonyms & antonyms
nounA two-masted sailing ship which has square sails on the foremast combined with a schooner rig on the mainmast (triangular topsail over a gaff mainsail).
More synonyms by meaning
nountwo-masted sailing vessel square-rigged on the foremast and fore-and-aft rigged on the mainmast
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
So called because it is a hybrid of the two main types of sail plan.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
hermaphrodite brig. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hermaphrodite%20brig
“hermaphrodite brig.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hermaphrodite%20brig. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “hermaphrodite brig,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hermaphrodite%20brig.
Source: hermaphrodite brig on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.