kayak
Americannoun
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a traditional Inuit or Yupik canoe with a skin cover on a light framework, made watertight by flexible closure around the waist of the occupant and propelled with a double-bladed paddle.
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a small boat resembling this, made commercially of a variety of materials and used in sports.
verb (used without object)
verb (used with object)
noun
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a small light canoe-like boat used by the Inuit, consisting of a light frame covered with watertight animal skins
-
a fibreglass or canvas-covered canoe of similar design
Other Word Forms
- kayaker noun
Etymology
Origin of kayak
First recorded in 1750–60, kayak is from the Inuit word qayaq
Explanation
A kayak is a narrow one- or two-person boat that is propelled with a double-ended paddle. You can use a kayak in the ocean, on a pond or lake, or in a river. When you get in a kayak and start paddling around, you kayak (the verb). People who visit the beach often rent sea kayaks and kayak around the shore and between small islands. An even more adventurous way to kayak is in a whitewater kayak on a fast-moving river. Kayaks were first built and used by Inuits, Aleuts, and Yup'iks, and the word comes from the Inuit qayaq, "small boat of skins."
Vocabulary lists containing kayak
Scrabble: Palindrome Words
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This Week in Words: Current Events Vocab for February 16–February 22, 2025
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Black Star, Bright Dawn
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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.
I was eager to get on a kayak, but learned that the state park no longer loaned them out.
From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 7, 2026
But the waves soon grew, flipping their boards and filling their kayak with water as they were dragged further out into the ocean.
From Barron's • Feb. 3, 2026
Jung, who was a postdoctoral researcher in Werner's lab at the time, collected samples while traveling across the lake by kayak and bicycle.
From Science Daily • Jan. 10, 2026
Video posted on social media showed a resident surveying the damage by kayak.
From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 2, 2026
That day, if they could steer a kayak through the fields of floating ice— they had lost five kayaks already—they would reach the floe and bring my father home.
From "Black Star, Bright Dawn" by Scott O'Dell
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.
