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boat

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boat¹

  • /bəʊ̯t/ UK
  • /boʊ̯t/ Canada, US
  • /bəʉ̯t/ Australia
  • /bɐʉ̯t/ New Zealand
  • /bot/ Scotland
  • /boːt/ Wales

Rhymes with -əʊt

Where it comes from

From Middle English bot, boot, boet, boyt (“boat”), from Old English bāt (“boat”), from Proto-West Germanic *bait, from Proto-Germanic *baitaz, *baitą (“boat, small ship”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeyd- (“to break, split”) (whence also fissure via Latin). Cognate with Old Norse beit (“boat”), Middle Dutch beitel (“little boat”).

Old Norse bátr (whence Faroese and Icelandic bátur, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish båt, Danish båd), Dutch boot, German Boot, Occitan batèl and French bateau are all ultimately borrowings from the Old English word.

Compare typologically ship << Proto-Indo-European *skey-; Russian долблёнка (dolbljónka) (< долби́ть (dolbítʹ)), Russian чёлн (čoln) (akin to коло́ть (kolótʹ)).

False cognate of Sanskrit बेडा (beḍā).

noun boats

  1. A small, usually open craft used for travelling over water, propelled by oars, motor or wind. Usually contrasted with "ship". We can't get everything in the boat. We'll leave this stuff behind.

    Similar: craft, ship, vessel

  2. A submarine.
  3. colloquial A large, ocean-going ship.
  4. A shallow jug used to serve sauces or other liquid foods. a stone boat;   a gravy boat
  5. A vessel used to store the incense to be burned during a service; an incense boat. And then when all were vested he had stood holding out the boat to the rector and the rector had put a spoonful of incense in it and it had hissed on the red coals.
  6. slang A full house.
  7. US, informal A car, especially a large or heavy one. Near-synonyms: land yacht, sled

    Similar: land yacht, sled

  8. physical One of two possible conformations of cyclohexane rings (the other being chair), shaped roughly like a boat.
  9. slang The face (compare boat race).
  10. Australian, informal The refugee boats arriving in Australian waters, and by extension, refugees generally.
  11. In Conway’s Game of Life, a particular still life consisting of a dead cell surrounded by five living cells. It creates 4 blocks, a boat, and a glider every 768 generations.
  12. alternative Alternative form of BOAT

verb boats · boating · boated

  1. intransitive To travel by boat.
  2. transitive To transport in a boat. to boat goods
  3. obsolete, slang, transitive To transport (deport to a penal colony). Troy was 'boated' for seven years after being found guilty of burglary and robbery.
  4. transitive To place in a boat. to boat oars

BOAT²

noun BOATs · BoaT · BoAT · B.O.A.T. · B. O. A. T. · Boat

  1. Internet, abbreviation, acronym Acronym of best of all time
  2. UK, abbreviation, acronym Acronym of byway open to all traffic

proper noun BoaT · BoAT · B.O.A.T. · B. O. A. T. · Boat · boat

  1. abbreviation, acronym, informal Acronym of brightest of all time (“the brightest gamma-ray burst ever recorded in the universe”).

BoaT³

noun

  1. alternative Alternative form of BOAT

BoAT⁴

noun

  1. alternative Alternative form of BOAT

Thesaurus

Closest in meaning: sauceboat, gravy boat, dinghy, yacht, dhow, motorboat, skiff, sloop, galley, scow, sailboat, vessel, barge, houseboat, watercraft, speedboat

Translations

Every language

noun water craft — see also watercraft, vessel, ship

Españolbarca, bote, barco
한국어배 bae, 보트 boteu
日本語舟 fune, ボート bōto
中文船 chuán, 小船 xiǎochuán, 舟 zhōu, 艇 tǐng
हिन्दीनाव nāv, नौका naukā, डोँगी ḍõgī, डोँगा ḍõgā, बेड़ी beṛī, बेड़ा beṛā
Kiswahilichombo, mashua
Portuguêsbarco, bote
Françaisbateau, barque, nacelle, navire
DeutschBoot, Schiff
Italianobarca, nave, battello, schifo, scialuppa, lancia
Ελληνικάβάρκα várka, λέμβος lémvos, καΐκι kaḯki
Românăbarcă, luntre, vapor
Русскийло́дка lódka, шлю́пка šljúpka, бот bot, чёлн čoln, ладья́ ladʹjá
Tiếng Việtthuyền
العربيةقَارِب qārib, مَرْكَب markab, زَوْرَق zawraq
עבריתסִירָה sirá

noun poker slang: full house

Italianofull

verb travel by boat

Españolbarquear

Talk about this word

Cite this
MLA

"boat." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/boat. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

boat. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/boat

Chicago

"boat." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/boat.

BibTeX
@misc{boat_2026,
  title = {boat},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/boat},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}