boatman
Americannoun
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boatmen
plural
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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:
The Bumps is closer to cheese-rolling than rowing, the Peterhouse boatman explained in a pep talk to the squad.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 19, 2026
The track, The Shadowy Light, paired her unmistakable voice with a cross-cultural ensemble, its imagery of a boatman guiding a soul across unknown waters reflecting on death and the afterlife.
From BBC ● Apr. 12, 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
Whenever he dropped a toy in the Nile, he said, a passing boatman would rescue it.
From New York Times ● Jun. 29, 2022
“What’s going on?” he said to the boatman when he returned the hired boat.
From "The Subtle Knife" by Philip Pullman
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
I was captivated, though, by the more realist paintings of François Bocion, who frequently painted working boatmen along Lake Geneva in the 19th century.
From New York Times ● Jul. 10, 2023
Other boatmen complain that without the tourists, there are now too many people fishing on the lake, and catches are small.
From BBC ● Apr. 16, 2023
Just before the accident, onlookers from the river bank were shouting at the boatmen to navigate carefully.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 27, 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.
