noun
definition
A merchant.
definition
A cargo ship, engaged in commercial activities, as opposed to a warship.
Examples of merchantmen in a Sentence
Large merchantmen and men-of-war can come up and unload along at least a considerable part of the water-front.
During the voyage out he captured a valuable Spanish convoy of eleven merchantmen.
To the end of the First Civil War, Batten continued to patrol the English seas, and his action in 1647 in bringing into Portsmouth a number of Swedish ships of war and merchantmen, which had refused the customary salute to the flag, was approved by parliament.
The losses which they sustained by land roused the Byzantines to indemnify themselves on the vessels which still crowded the harbour, and the merchantmen which cleared the straits; but this had the effect of provoking a war with the neighbouring naval powers.
Two hundred and twelve warships or converted merchantmen were in commission on the 1st of January 1862.
When, however, surveillance became blockade, prizes could only with difficulty be brought into port, and, since the parties interested gained nothing by burning merchantmen, privateering soon died out, and was replaced by commerce-destroying pure and simple, carried out by commissioned vessels of the Confederate navy.
His neutrality treaty with Sweden (17th of March 1794), for protecting their merchantmen by combined squadrons, was also extremely beneficial to the Scandinavian powers, both commercially and politically.