cockboat
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of cockboat
1400–50; late Middle English cokboot, variant of cogboot, equivalent to cog boat, ship (akin to Old Norse kuggi small ship) + boot 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.
"It would be more candid as well as more dignified," he said, "to avow our principles explicitly to Russia and France than to come in as a cockboat in the wake of the British man-of-war."
From Time Magazine Archive
When Robin-a-dale had also quenched his thirst the two left the forest, and together dragged the cockboat down the sand and launched it over the gentle surf.
From Sir Mortimer by Johnston, Mary
The book is a mere cockboat beside the mighty argosy of the Cyrus, running only to four volumes and some two thousand pages.
From A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 From the Beginning to 1800 by Saintsbury, George
He was but a free lance of the polished "Detrimentals," and, under this last adverse stroke of fortune, his poor cockboat was being swamped in the black waters of adversity.
From A Fascinating Traitor An Anglo-Indian Story by Savage, Richard
I swam with undulation soft, Adrift on Vischer's ocean, And, from my cockboat up aloft, Sent down my mental plummet oft In hope to reach a notion.
From The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell by Lowell, James Russell
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.
