Large merchant ship that visits designated ports on a regular schedule, carrying whatever cargo and passengers are available on the date of sailing.
The first liners were operated in the North Atlantic, notably by Mauretania and the Queen Mary ; the German Vaterland (later renamed Leviathan ), for many years the largest ship afloat; the ill-fated {{link=Titanic">Titanic ; and the United States . Their reign ended in the 1960s with the rise of jet travel, but liners ranging from cruise ships to refrigerated cargo ships continued to sail.