Meanings
plural lodesmen · alternative loadsman · alternative lodeman · alternative loadman
- historicalnauticalA pilot; navigator.
For much of the Middle Ages, ships had only three ranks of seamen: master, lodesman or navigator, and mariner.
2011, Anne Crawford, Yorkist Lord: John Howard, Duke of Norfolk, c. 1425 -14852 more examples
River and harbor pilotage, in English maritime affairs, is called loadmanage, from loadsman or lodesman, a kind of pilot established for the safe conduct of ships and vessels in and out of harbors, or up and down navigable rivers.
2009, Erastus C. Benedict, The American AdmiraltySuch has always been the importance of preserving the life and cargo carried by ships that pilots (or 'lodesmen') have been employed for centuries as freelance mariners.
2014, Neil Jones, Paul Ridgway, Light Through a Lens
Origin
- Old Englishlādmann“a leader, guide”
- Middle Englishlodesman, lodesmon, lodysman“pilot”
- Englishlodesman
From Middle English lodesman, lodesmon, lodysman (“pilot”, literally “lode's or course's man”), alteration of earlier lodeman, from Old English lādmann (“a leader, guide”), equivalent to lode (“way, course”) + -s- + man. Compare to lodemanage.
More words from Middle English, Old English
Full word history & related roots →Rhymes & wordplay
Anagrams
Cite this entry
lodesman. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/lodesman
“lodesman.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/lodesman. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “lodesman,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/lodesman.
Source: lodesman on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.