Meanings
plural cockboats · alternative cock-boat · alternative cockleboat
- nauticalA small rowing boat, especially one pulled behind a larger ship, or used to ferry goods between a ship and the shore.
Haue care, I pray, to guide the cock-bote well, / Least worse on sea then vs on land befell.
1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC1 more example
The Malabar, that huge sea monster, in whose capacious belly so many human creatures lived and suffered, had dwindled to a walnut-shell, and yet beside her bulk how infinitely small had their own frail cockboat appeared as they shot out from under her towering stern!
1874, Marcus Clarke, “Chapter V”, in For the Term of His Natural LifeSynonyms: dinghy
Synonyms & antonyms
nounA small rowing boat, especially one pulled behind a larger ship, or used to ferry goods between a ship and the shore.
Origin
From cog (“a small boat”).
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Ancient Greek λέμβος
- λέμβος (lémbos)a small boat
Finnish jolla
- jollaa small boat
Greek λέμβος
- λέμβος (lémvos)a small boat
Cite this entry
cockboat. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/cockboat
“cockboat.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/cockboat. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “cockboat,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/cockboat.
Source: cockboat on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.