boat

plural boats

1. Vessel for travelling by water.
   1. A small, usually open craft used for travelling over water, propelled by oars, motor or wind. Usually contrasted with "ship".First known use 9th c.

      We can't get everything in the boat. We'll leave this stuff behind.

      3 more examples

      Even such a boat as the Mount Vernon offered a total deck space so cramped as to leave secrecy or privacy well out of the question, even had the motley and democratic assemblage of passengers been disposed to accord either.

      1910, Emerson Hough, chapter II, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC

      Next he put the mackerel in a fry-pan, and the shanty began to smell like a Banks boat just in from a v'yage.

      1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VIII, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC

      The dawn of the oil age was fairly recent. Although the stuff was used to waterproof boats in the Middle East 6,000 years ago, extracting it in earnest began only in 1859 after an oil strike in Pennsylvania.

      2013 August 3, “Yesterday’s fuel”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847

      Synonyms: craft, ship, vessel

   2. A submarine.First known use 19th c.
   3. colloquialA large, ocean-going ship.First known use 19th c.
2. A container resembling a boat in shape.A shallow jug used to serve sauces or other liquid foods.First known use 15th c.

   a stone boat;   a gravy boat

3. A container resembling a boat in shape.; Anglicanism; AnglicanismCatholicismA vessel used to store the incense to be burned during a service; an incense boat.First known use 18th c.

   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.

   1916, James Joyce, chapter I, in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, New York, N.Y.: B[enjamin] W. Huebsch, →OCLC

4. slangOther senses.card gamesA full house.
5. USinformalOther senses.A car, especially a large or heavy one.First known use 20th c.

   Near-synonyms: land yacht, sled

   1 more example

   He claimed to be broke but he always drove that ridiculous boat.

   Synonyms: land yacht, sled

6. physicalOther senses.chemistryOne of two possible conformations of cyclohexane rings (the other being chair), shaped roughly like a boat.First known use 20th c.
7. slangOther senses.The face (compare boat race).First known use 20th c.
8. AustralianinformalOther senses.governmentThe refugee boats arriving in Australian waters, and by extension, refugees generally.
9. Other senses.cellular automataIn 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.

   1994 May 7, David Bell, “HighLife - An Interesting Variant of Life (part 1/3)”, in comp.theory.cell-automata (Usenet)

   2 more examples

   The program is represented as a string of boats (1s) and blocks (0s).

   2004 May 24, Paul Chapman, “A Prototype Programmable Universal Constructor for Conway's Life”, in comp.theory.cell-automata (Usenet)

   For many stable patterns, by the way, there are other input glider lanes where the gliders are caught and turned into boats, which are then cleanly deleted by another glider coming in on the same lane.

   2005 February 23, Dave Greene, “exist glider gun able of reconstruction in Life?”, in comp.theory.cell-automata (Usenet)

10. alternativeOther senses.Alternative form of BOAT.

present singular third person boats · participle present boating · participle past boated · past boated

1. intransitiveTo travel by boat.
2. transitiveTo transport in a boat.

   to boat goods

3. obsoleteslangtransitiveTo transport (deport to a penal colony).

   Troy was 'boated' for seven years after being found guilty of burglary and robbery.

   2021, Graham Seal, Condemned, page 120

4. transitiveTo place in a boat.

   to boat oars

plural BOATs · alternative BoaT · alternative BoAT · alternative B.O.A.T. · alternative B. O. A. T. · alternative Boat · alternative boat

1. InternetabbreviationacronymAcronym of best of all time.
2. UKabbreviationacronymAcronym of byway open to all traffic.

alternative BoaT · alternative BoAT · alternative B.O.A.T. · alternative B. O. A. T. · alternative Boat · alternative boat

1. abbreviationacronyminformalastronomyAcronym of brightest of all time (“the brightest gamma-ray burst ever recorded in the universe”).

1. alternativeAlternative form of BOAT.

1. alternativeAlternative form of BOAT.