ship's papers

1. 1.

   official papers which a ship is legally required to have; related to ownership, cargo, etc.

   Broaderlegal document

   law

Questions about ship's papers

What does ship's papers mean?

ship's papers means "official papers which a ship is legally required to have; related to ownership, cargo, etc.".

Is ship's papers a common word?

ship's papers is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.