The article is devoted to the analysis of the lexical semantic field “water transport vessel” in the English naive image of the world. The research material was based on the selection of explanatory dictionaries of the English language. The lexical semantic field is defined in the work as a paradigmatic union of lexical units of a certain part of speech according to a common integral component of meaning. We regard this lexical semantic field as a specific fragment of the linguistic picture of the world, reflecting the knowledge and ideas of English speakers about a certain part of the world around them. The structure of the lexical semantic field “water transport vessel”, consisting of the core, the medial zone and the periphery, is analyzed. The definitional analysis of nuclear lexical units of the “water transport vessel” field under study allowed us to group the integral semes of these units into the following cognitive features: ARTIFACT, which has the form of a CONTAINER and intended for targeted MOVEMENT by WATER. The most generally distinguished model is present in nuclear field units: boat, craft, ship, vessel. The medial zone contains more than fifty lexical units, each of which specifies a particular cognitive feature. The periphery of the common language variant of the field under study consists of a hundred phraseological units of the English language, which figuratively rethink this cognitive model. A ship, shipping serve as a donor cognitive sphere, from which the speakers scooped meaningful blocks and transferred them to other, target cognitive spheres, interpreting abstract or concrete phenomena, situations, actions in terms of shipping and navigation.