bowsman

English

Etymology

From bow +‎ -s- +‎ man.

Noun

bowsman (plural bowsmen)

1. (nautical) A sailor who works in the bow of a vessel.
   • 1851, Herman Melville, chapter 72, in Moby Dick:

     “Being the savage's bowsman, that is, the person who pulled the bow-oar in his boat (the second one from forward), it was my cheerful duty to attend upon him while taking that hard-scrabble scramble upon the dead whale's back."