tramp steamer

noun

tramp steamer

noun

1

Nautical, Transport A commercial steamship that has no regular schedule or published ports of call.

They found out I was bright, so they figured I'd make a good labor organizer when I got out of school. When I left at the end of the summer, they carefully instructed me how to shag a tramp steamer in 'Frisco going south, lending me an old union card so I could work my passage as a deck hand.1994 October, Harry Hay, “Focussing On NAMBLA Obscures The Issues”, in Gay Community News, page 16:

Synonyms: ocean tramp
Related terms: tramp trade

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.