boat

Etymology

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”). Cognate with Old Norse beit (“boat”), Middle Dutch beitel (“little boat”). Old Norse bátr (whence Icelandic bátur, Norwegian båt, Danish båd), Dutch boot, German Boot, Occitan batèl and French bateau are all ultimately borrowings from the Old English word.

noun

1. A craft used for transportation of goods, fishing, racing, recreational cruising, or military use on or in the water, propelled by oars or outboard motor or inboard motor or by wind.
   Philander went into the next room[…]and came back with a salt mackerel[…]. 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. Lincoln, chapter 8, in Mr. Pratt's Patients
   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. The first barrels of crude fetched $18 (around $450 at today’s prices). 2013-08-03, “Yesterday’s fuel”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847
2. (poker slang) A full house.
3. A vehicle, utensil, or dish somewhat resembling a boat in shape.
   a stone boat;  a gravy boat
4. (chemistry) One of two possible conformations of cyclohexane rings (the other being chair), shaped roughly like a boat.
5. (Australian politics, informal) The refugee boats arriving in Australian waters, and by extension, refugees generally.

verb

1. (intransitive) To travel by boat.
2. (transitive) To transport in a boat.
   to boat goods
3. (transitive) To place in a boat.
   to boat oars