Older usages are looser; in addition to the rigorous definition above (attested from 1695), the Oxford English Dictionary includes two c. 1525 definitions: "a small vessel equipped both for sailing and rowing, swifter and more easily manœuvred than larger ships" and "(loosely) various kinds of foreign sailing and rowing vessels, as the galleon, galliot, etc.

The vessel had no lateen sails, but was instead square-rigged on the foremast and had a gaff-rigged mainsail with square rig above it on the mainmast.

By the first half of the 18th century, the word had evolved to refer not to a kind of vessel, but rather to a particular type of rigging: two-masted, with her foremast fully square-rigged and her mainmast rigged with both a fore-and-aft mainsail (a gaff sail) and square topsails and possibly topgallant sails.

[1] The brigantine was the second-most popular rig for ships built in the British colonies in North America before 1775, after the sloop.

The training ship Zebu, which circumnavigated the Earth as part of Operation Raleigh, is an example of a schooner brig.