pinnace
[pin-is]
- a light sailing ship, especially one formerly used in attendance on a larger ship.
- any of various kinds of ship's boats.
- a small 17th-century ship having two or three masts and a flat stern, used in northern Europe as a warship and merchant ship and as a tender.
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Origin of pinnace
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Related Words
yacht, skiff, craft, vessel, ship, catamaran, schooner, sloop, cutter, dinghy, canoe, sailboat, barge, raft, gondola, clipper, galley, yawl, jack, barkExamples from the Web for pinnace
Historical Examples
The pinnace was then stripped of her rigging and of all the goods which remained.
King PhilipJohn S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
Later in the afternoon it was observed that Hornigold's pinnace was not in the harbor.
Sir Henry Morgan, BuccaneerCyrus Townsend Brady
The last shot, too, that was fired from the pinnace had killed three men.
The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. DidoHenry Keppel
It was Kamuso, who said he was bound for Sandwich and would beg a passage in the pinnace.
Standish of StandishJane G. Austin
I was helping to get out the pinnace, and there is a mort of dust and dirt about her.
Standish of StandishJane G. Austin
pinnace
- any of various kinds of ship's tender
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Word Origin
C16: from French pinace, apparently from Old Spanish pinaza, literally: something made of pine, ultimately from Latin pīnus pine
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for pinnace
n.
small, light vessel, 1540s, from Middle French pinace (earlier spinace, 15c., from Old French espinace, Modern French péniche; also attested as Anglo-Latin spinachium (mid-14c.)); of unknown origin. The French word perhaps is from Italian pinaccia or Spanish pinaza, from pino "pine tree; ship" (Latin pinus "pine tree" also had a secondary sense of "ship, vessel"). But variations in early forms makes this uncertain.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper