sponson

English

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Alternative forms

• sponsing (noun only)

Noun

sponson (plural sponsons)

1. (nautical, aviation, military) A projection from the side of an aircraft, watercraft, or land vehicle.
   • 1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter IX, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:

     He and Gerald usually challenged the rollers in a sponson canoe when Gerald was there for the weekend; or, when Lansing came down, the two took long swims seaward or cruised about in Gerald's dory, clad in their swimming-suits ; and Selwyn's youth became renewed in a manner almost ridiculous, […].

Verb

sponson (third-person singular simple present sponsons, present participle sponsoning, simple past and past participle sponsoned)

1. (nautical, aviation, military, transitive, often with the particle "out") To mount on a projection on the side of a vessel.
   • 1899, John Scott-Keltie, editor, Statesman's Year-Book 1899:

     The belted cruiser Pamiat Azova or Remembrance of Azoff, is 377 feet long. She is an improved Dmitri Dontskoi, and carries her two 8-inch guns in sponsoned barbettes on either broadside