motor vessel (plural motor vessels) noun Definition: engine-driven ship: a ship powered by an engine. Commonly abbreviated as MS or MV.
The origins of motor vessel originate from approximately 1780s. “SS” stands for Steam Ship, which meant in the days between Robert Fulton to the 1920s the ship’s boilers were powered by coal or in the case of riverboats, wood. By the 1920s, ships began to use oil and the SS designation began to slowly disappear and gave way to “M V”.
Today, there are a multitude of acronyms used in the prefixes of vessels, many of which represent the various changes in technology or specialization (ie, S/S, M/V, GTS, HLV, TS).
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