Seaman (rank)
enlisted rank in many navies around the world
Seaman is a military rank used in many navies around the world. It is considered a junior enlisted rank and, depending on the navy, it may be a single rank on its own or a name shared by several similarly junior ranks.
In the Commonwealth, it is the lowest rank in the navy, except in Canada where the Royal Canadian Navy now uses the gender-neutral title sailor in English and matelot in French. In the United States, it refers to the three lowest ranks of the U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard. The equivalent of the seaman is the matelot in French-speaking countries, and Matrose in German-speaking countries.
Australia
The Royal Australian Navy features one seaman rank, which is split into two distinct classes. Seaman and seaman* (pronounced "seaman star"), to differentiate between those who have completed their employment training and those who are in training. There is no insignia on a seaman rank slide.
Canada
There are 4 grades of sailor (previously the term "seaman", until it was replaced with "sailor" in August 2020)/matelot in the Royal Canadian Navy:
The rank of master sailor is unique because it was created only for the Canadian Navy. It does not follow the British tradition of other Canadian ranks.
The public source identifies “Seaman (rank)” as enlisted rank in many navies around the world. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Seaman, rank and enlisted.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q707995. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2020.
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This entry incorporates text from “Seaman (rank)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.