catamaran

plural catamarans

1. A twin-hulled ship or boat.

   Swift over the seas the vessel drives; Madras appears in sight. The first object catching the eye, upon the anchor being cast, was an Indian upon his catamaran, who, making a sudden motion, sprung to the side of the ship, grappled there for a moment, and the next was on the deck.

   1838, [Letitia Elizabeth] Landon (indicated as editor), chapter XV, in Duty and Inclination: […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 218

   Synonyms: twinhull, cat

2. colloquialobsoleterareA quarrelsome woman; a scold.

   She meddles with my prescriptions for your wife; she doctors the infant in private: you'll never have a quiet house or a quiet wife as long as that old Catamaran is here.

   1889, William Makepeace Thackeray, Hobson's Choice

3. obsoleteA raft of three pieces of wood lashed together, the middle piece being longer than the others, and serving as a keel on which the rower squats while paddling.

   Three or four strange-looking things now came close to our boat, which I understood were called ‘catamarans’, consisting of nothing more than two or three large trees, the trunk part only strongly lashed together, upon which sat two men nearly in a state of nature […] .

   1808–10, William Hickey, Memoirs of a Georgian Rake, Folio Society 1995, p. 90

4. obsoleteAn old kind of fireship.