coaster

1. (nautical)Examples: "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."; "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."

2. (nautical)Examples: "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."; "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."; "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."Synonyms: coasting vessel

3. (Canada, US) Ellipsis of coaster trout (“the brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) in Lake Superior and Maine”).CanadaUSabbreviationalt-ofellipsis

4. (US) A cow from the coastal part of Texas.Examples: "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."; "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."US

5. (slang, dated) A prostitute, especially one of European descent, plying her trade in Chinese port towns.Examples: "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."; "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."; "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."datedslang