Etymology

catboat

C3A1T1B3O1A1T1

Today it means: A sailing boat with a single sail, usually rigged on a gaff spar, used for fishing in New England and later adapted for racing and cruising. It has a single mast set near to the bow and a long boom which may extend over the stern. Full definition →

Irish cot
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The story

  1. Irish · derived fromcot
  2. English todaycatboat

According to Watkins, the first element is related to the animal cat and has correlations in Dutch kat (“vessel with wide fore and aft”), Medieval Latin gatus, gattus, Old French chat, a war machine or portable shed for protecting sapping operations, or a boat with such a shed, and Middle French chat (“kind of commercial vessel”). However, it could instead derive from Irish cot, coit; see cot (sense 3).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.