bumboat
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of bumboat
1665–75; probably partial translation of Dutch bomschuit a small fishing boat, perhaps contraction of bodemschuit ( je ) literally, bottom-boat
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.
Consider buddleboy, bogeyman, bumboat man, flirter, higgler, pugger, muffleman, quarrel picker, spittle-maker, whiff-maker and willy man.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 14, 2025
Like bumboat boys diving for pennies, book publishers scrambled for Woollcott words of praise for a new work, to splash on the volume's jacket as the blurb of blurbs.
From Time Magazine Archive
Our stay off Tompkinsville was to be short, but we had time to become acquainted with a characteristic naval oddity known as the bumboat.
From A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" by Russell Doubleday
Though she had no money, she had, however, ample credit to stock her bumboat.
From Peter Trawl The Adventures of a Whaler by James Durden
Then the bumboat shoved off to return to the shore, and in fifteen minutes Lee stood upon foreign soil for the first time.
From Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XII, Jan. 3, 1891 by James Elverson
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.
