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slipway

nounC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #14,860 of 15,258mostly written

Other forms: slipways

A slipway is the sloping ramp a boat is launched down into the water. Down the slipway, a concrete slipway, the lifeboat slipway.

A lifeboat station is built around one, so the boat can be released to slide into the sea under its own weight in seconds. The same ramp is used in reverse to haul a boat out for painting.

Vincent van Zeijst · CC BY-SA 3.0

Definitions of slipway

  1. 1nounslipwayThe sloping ramp a boat is launched down.C1

    “The lifeboat shot down the slipway and into the swell.”

slipway is a ramp.

Where it comes from

From slip + way.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Sea & Sailing

Practise this word

slipway in the wild

  • A slipway is a ramp on the shore by which ships and other vessels can be moved to and from the water.

    Slipway

  • Nevertheless the words "slip" and "slipway" are also used for all dry-docking installations that use a ramp.

    Slipway

  • The hamlet consists of two terraces of cottages, a few detached dwellings, a coastguard station and a boathouse with a slipway which once housed the Padstow lifeboat.

    Hawker's Cove, Cornwall

  • A new boathouse with a roller slipway was built in 1931.

    Hawker's Cove, Cornwall

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.