ferryboat

UK/ˈfɛɹiˌbəʊt/US/ˈfɛɹiˌboʊt/

nounB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #11,157 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: ferryboats

A ferryboat is the vessel that shuttles back and forth on one short crossing. Board the ferryboat.

Many are double-ended so they never need to turn round, which halves the time at each side. A ferryboat is often the only link a community has, which is why losing one is a serious matter.

Definitions of ferryboat

1nounferryboatThe vessel itself that shuttles back and forth on one short fixed crossing, named with the word for a small craft attached.B2+
“The ferryboat crossed forty times a day in summer.”

ferryboat is a boat.

Where it comes from

Ferry plus boat; ferry comes from an old root meaning to carry, which also gives fare.

From ferry + boat.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

ferryboat in the wild

The car ferryboat line offers an alternative to the heavy traffic on the Bosphorus Bridge.
Harem, Üsküdar
The museum maintains the MacMullen Library and Research Archives aboard the 1898 ferryboat Berkeley.
Maritime Museum of San Diego
USS Commodore Hull was a ferryboat acquired by the Union Navy during the American Civil War.
USS Commodore Hull
The community had ferryboat service to Potomac Beach in Virginia before the present bridge opened in 1940.
Morgantown, Maryland
The Binghamton was a ferryboat that transported passengers across the Hudson River between Manhattan and Hoboken from 1905 to 1967.
Binghamton (ferryboat)

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

From Project Gutenberg, public domain. These sentences are from real books, shown to illustrate the word at work.

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