outboard motor
Americannoun
Etymology
Origin of outboard motor
First recorded in 1905–10
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.
The flagellum comprises more than 30 distinct parts, so similar to those of an outboard motor that biologists speak of the flagellum’s propeller, drive shaft and so forth.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 16, 2026
The family was aboard the Pangaboat, a small boat with an outboard motor, along with several other people when it capsized at Del Mar Beach.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 30, 2025
For that we would be given an inflatable dinghy, with an outboard motor and 60 life jackets, to get across the English Channel.
From BBC ● Oct. 25, 2024
Temple, set up a fair distance from the community’s push-off point, was double-checking the outboard motor of his canoe.
From Slate ● Dec. 16, 2023
I can’t say for certain whether God was listening, but it wasn’t long afterward that I heard the wheezy chug-a-chug- chug of a small outboard motor.
From "Flush" by Carl Hiaasen
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.
