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1. Noun, "ship": a romantic and/or sexual relationship between fictional characters.

2. Verb, "to ship": to expect, hope for, prefer, or believe that two fictional characters will have a romantic and/or sexual relationship. One can ship casually, in the sense that one might like to see a certain pairing happen or think it's appealing while acknowledging its impossibility. One can also ship WITH THE FIRE OF A THOUSAND BURNING SUNS. Related noun: "shipper," one who ships.

I first heard the expression in terms of the X-Files fandom--people who wanted Mulder and Scully to end up together were "relationshippers," which then got shortened to "shippers," and so on. (The opposing party was called the Noromos, I believe--"No Romance." This is possibly the first and last time a large group of people has insisted that there be no romance of any kind in a shipping context; most people are happy to ship endless permutations of character pairings. Well--I suppose there's also a similar group in the Doctor Who fandom, now that I mention it.)

Ships are usually indicated by slashes--one might ship Harry/Ginny or Harry/Hermione (but choose wisely, because this is SERIOUS BUSINESS), although you used to see it written as (Whoever) + (Whoever) as well. Ships will often be given abbreviations (H/G) or ill-advised nicknames, such as any Snape pairing in the Harry Potter fandom ever ("Snupin"? Seriously?) or the ill-fated Harmony. Of course, there are hundreds of other ships in other fandoms, but Harry Potter's the one I'm most familiar with, although you also see some pretty violent altercations in the aforementioned Doctor Who fandom, for example.

See also

• Harmonians
• Serious Business
• Wank