boatman
Americannoun
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a person skilled in the use of small craft.
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a person who sells, rents, or works on boats.
noun
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a man who works on, hires out, repairs, or operates a boat or boats
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short for water boatman
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of boatman
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
According to legend, it took rough and rugged characters to tame the early American frontier: men like Daniel Boone, the trailblazer, or Mike Fink, the brawling river boatman.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 26, 2026
"I'm an old boatman, I have experienced another four floods in the village. This was the worst," he told media.
From Reuters ● Sep. 9, 2023
Our boatman, a member of the local Intha ethnic group, tells us we are the first foreign customers he has had for more than three years.
From BBC ● Apr. 16, 2023
“The Kingdoms of Savannah” is an ensemble piece with no real center of gravity, and way too many kooky humans to enumerate here: a slumlord, a lazy boatman, a whistling vagrant.
From New York Times ● Jul. 20, 2022
The boatman sat at his tiller smoking a pipe, looking stolidly ahead.
From "Atonement" by Ian McEwan
Certainly the good Samaritans must have known the two boatmen were not going to be put on trial, owing to lack of evidence.
From Slate ● Oct. 21, 2025
"At one end of the scale we have 80-year-olds who are competent boatmen, know the techniques and how to deal with the river because they have done it for years," Mr Truman says.
From BBC ● Mar. 9, 2024
Just before the accident, onlookers from the river bank were shouting at the boatmen to navigate carefully.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 27, 2022
What takes me by surprise is the warmth of the boatmen, Italian American, old, kind, used to Hindu families carrying out the ritual of scattering ashes on water.
From Salon ● Jun. 25, 2022
The men who commanded them were the bravest and most reckless boatmen in the Navy.
From "Code Talker: A Novel About the Navajo Marines of World War Two" by Joseph Bruchac
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
