jolly boat

American  

noun

1. a light boat carried at the stern of a sailing vessel.

2. a small pleasure sailboat for use in sheltered waters.

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jolly boat British  

noun

1. a small boat used as a utility tender for a vessel

2. a small sailing boat used for pleasure

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Etymology

Origin of jolly boat

1720–30; jolly < Danish jolle yawl ¹

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

jolly boat

The common whale measures from sixty to seventy feet in length: the mouth, when open, is large enough to admit a ship's jolly boat, with all her men in it.

From Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean From Authentic Accounts Of Modern Voyagers And Travellers; Designed For The Entertainment And Instruction Of Young People by Marmaduke Park

Both the sailors on board had been drowned, but the Captain himself had managed to make good his escape in the jolly boat.

From Strange Stories by Grant Allen

This visit I returned by going on shore among them, taking only a few people with me in my jolly boat, that I might not alarm them by numbers.

From A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 12 Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History of the Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and Commerce, by Sea and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time by Robert Kerr

I know of a jolly boat as would just do.”

From Quicksilver The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel by Frank Dadd

Once on the glorious anniversary of Yankee Independence, we made the lease of a jolly boat.

From Los Gringos Or, An Inside View of Mexico and California, with Wanderings in Peru, Chili, and Polynesia by H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise

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