coaster
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈkəʊstə/
ipa: /ˈkoʊstɚ/
ipa: /ˈkʌʊstə/
rhymes: -əʊstə(ɹ)
Forms: form: coasters
Etymology: From coast (“edge of the land where it meets an ocean, sea, gulf, bay, or large lake”) + -er (suffix forming agent nouns). Coast is derived from Middle English coste (“rib; side of the body, flank; side of a building; face of a solid figure; coast, shore; bay, gulf; sea; concavity, hollow; boundary, limit; land; country; district, province, region; locality, place; division of the heavens; compass direction; direction; location with reference to direction, side”) [and other forms], from Old French coste (“rib; side of an object; coast”) (modern French côte (“rib; coast; hill, slope”)), from Latin costa (“rib; side, wall”), from Proto-Indo-European *kost-.
Senses: examples: text: People said, "Eldridge. Of course, he's an old Coaster," and Eldridge, the middle-aged shipping agent, at the beginning of every meal would say, "Chop, as we call it on the Coast," or handing a plate of onions, "Violets, we say on the Coast."
ref: 1936, Graham Greene, “The Cargo Ship”, in Journey Without Maps, 1st US edition, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Doran & Company, →OCLC, part 1, page 27:
glosses: A person who originates from or inhabits a coastal area.
examples: text: Thus, with ſhort Plummets Heav'ns deep will we ſound, / That vaſt Abyſs where humane Wit is drown'd! / In our ſmall Skiff we muſt not launce too far; / We here but Coaſters, not Diſcov'rers are.
ref: 1669 June (first performance), John Dryden, Tyrannick Love, or, The Royal Martyr. […], London: […] H[enry] Herringman, […], published 1670, →OCLC, Act IV, scene i, page 43:
text: If you question a seaman on the subject, whether mere coaster or circumnavigator, he will tell you that in a snow-storm, because of its constant eddyings and gyrations, frequent trimming of sails is more necessary than in any other gale, and that to steer a straight and steady course under such circumstances is for the time simply impossible.
ref: 1881 April, “Snow Storm Gales”, in Symons’s Monthly Meteorological Magazine, volume XVI, number CLXXXIII, London: Edward Stanford, […], →OCLC, page 59:
topics: nautical
transport
glosses: A sailor (especially the master or pilot of a vessel) who travels only in coastal waters.
examples: text: His father was skipper of a small coaster, from Bristol, and dying, left him, when quite young, to the care of his mother, by whose exertions he received a common-school education, passing his winters in school and his summers in the coasting trade, until his seventeenth year, when he left home to go upon foreign voyages.
ref: 1840, R[ichard] H[enry] D[ana], Jr., chapter XXIII, in Two Years before the Mast. […] (Harper’s Family Library; no. CVI), New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers […], →OCLC, page 245:
text: The single line to Exmouth Docks curves round the back of the goods yard. […] The docks can handle vessels of up to 700 tons; on the day of my visit an English coaster was discharging coal and a Dutch coaster arrived with a cargo of wood pulp from Sweden.
ref: 1960 May, R. C. Riley, “The Coastal Branches of South-East Devon: Part One”, in Trains Illustrated, London: Ian Allan Publishing, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 298:
text: Overhead, the black flag with the white skull-and-crossbones symbolizing defiance of radio regulations fluttered limply atop the two-hundred-foot mast mounted on the converted coaster from which they operated.
ref: 1969, John Brunner, chapter IX, in Double, Double, London: Gateway, Hachette, published 2011, →ISBN:
topics: nautical
transport
hyponyms: hoy
synonyms: coasting vessel
glosses: A merchant vessel that stays in coastal waters, especially one that travels between ports of the same country.
glosses: Ellipsis of coaster trout (“the brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) in Lake Superior and Maine”).
examples: text: The ranch's rangy coasters, the only saleable cattle they then held, could not compete with cattle from a growing number of Midwest farmer-feeders or with competitors stocking the northern ranges.
ref: 2020, Michael M. Miller, XIT: A Story of Land, Cattle, and Capital in Texas and Montana, page 119:
text: 2021, Ernest Haycox, Karl May, Zane Grey, 50 Westerns
But our market required a better quality than coasters and Mexican cattle, and we turned back up the country.
glosses: A cow from the coastal part of Texas.
examples: text: I think you can say this much, that from these traces of callus I'd venture she was once a ballet dancer—and later got her living otherwise—as a coaster perhaps.
ref: 1932, [Francis] Van Wyck Mason, The Branded Spy Murders, New York, N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap, →OCLC, page 65:
text: Gently again, he raised his hand to tap on the smooth white panels of the coaster’s door, but once more his interview with Ruby Braunfeld was postponed.
ref: 1933, [Francis] Van Wyck Mason, The Shanghai Bund Murders, New York, N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap, →OCLC, page 51:
text: Once engaged to be married, Lily and Doc [in the film Shanghai Express (1932)] have been separated for more than five years because of Doc's jealous reaction to a ploy Lily had used to test his love. They meet, by chance, on the Shanghai Express. Lily has become a "coaster", a vamp who travels along the China coast looking for men to victimize, and Doc has thrown himself into his work as a British medical officer.
ref: 1993, Gina Marchetti, “The Threat of Captivity: The Bitter Tea of General Yen and Shanghai Express”, in Romance and the “Yellow Peril”: Race, Sex, and Discursive Strategies in Hollywood Romance, Berkeley; Los Angeles, Calif.; London: University of California Press, →ISBN, page 59:
text: I have studied your astrological chart and it fills me with more concern than hatred. If you stay in China, I fear you will end up a coaster.
ref: 2000, Charles Busch, Shanghai Moon: A Comic Melodrama, New York, N.Y.; London: Samuel French, →ISBN:
glosses: A prostitute, especially one of European descent, plying her trade in Chinese port towns.