coble

American  

[koh-buhl] / ˈkoʊ bəl /

noun

1. a flat-bottomed fishing boat with a lugsail, used mainly in northern England and Scotland for salmon.

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coble British  

/ ˈkəʊbəl, ˈkɒbəl /

noun

1. a small single-masted flat-bottomed fishing boat

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Etymology

Origin of coble

First recorded in 1400–50; late Middle English cobel; probably of Celtic origin (compare Welsh ceubal, ceubol “skiff, ferryboat”), ultimately from Late Latin caupulus, caupilus “small sailing vessel with a high prow”

Example Sentences

The poor man did not see that the same argument, if correct, would have justified his going off in a coble instead of a lifeboat.

From The Lifeboat by Ballantyne, R. M. (Robert Michael)

To "get away Norrad" is the right of men; and he feels himself manly as he sits amidships while the coble skims out into the bay.

From The Romance of the Coast by Runciman, James

He saw the thirteen houses washed away, and at the same time a coble carried right over the bridge and left high and dry on the other side.

From A Month in Yorkshire by White, Walter

For some time I could see naught; but at last it did seem to me as if something dark—a great fish, or perhaps only a shadow—followed studiously in the track of the moving coble.

From The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI by Stevenson, Robert Louis

I accompanied them to Sluie, and was ferried over the river in a salmon coble.

From The Cruise of the Betsey or, A Summer Ramble Among the Fossiliferous Deposits of the Hebrides. With Rambles of a Geologist or, Ten Thousand Miles Over the Fossiliferous Deposits of Scotland by Symonds, W. S. (William Samuel)