steamboat
Americannoun
-
steamboats
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of steamboat
Vocabulary lists containing steamboat
The Industrial Revolution - Introductory
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The Industrial Revolution - Middle School and High School
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Example Sentences
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The steamboat reversed this flow, reshaping the antebellum economy decades before the railroad.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 24, 2026
The classic cartoon stars the beloved mascot as the whistling, rascally pilot of a steamboat floating down a river.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 2, 2024
A grand jury in 2020 initially indicted Boylan on 34 counts of a pre-Civil War statute colloquially known as “seaman’s manslaughter” that was designed to hold steamboat captains and crew responsible for maritime disasters.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 24, 2023
Four years after completing her studies, Flora married Edwin Patterson of Ripley, Ohio, and they settled in nearby Cincinnati where he was a steamboat pilot.
From Scientific American ● Jan. 26, 2023
The ferry sauropod navigated between huge armored warships and around a steamboat before docking alongside an ancient wooden frigate with cannons poking out of either side.
From "Dactyl Hill Squad" by Daniel José Older
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“Too many people that don’t know Mississippi think of it as a river, steamboats and some old guy strumming a banjo on a broken porch,” says Mr. Carswell.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 29, 2025
Bucky would tell you that the hotel was built in 1847 and guests originally traveled by steamboats to enjoy their holiday by the bay.
From Salon ● May 4, 2023
Treichel describes a wide variety of creations from the children, ranging from harbor ships to steamboats.
From Seattle Times ● May 1, 2023
The lake, which was once navigated by steamboats, had evaporated into dusty salt flats after the aqueduct was completed in 1913.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 25, 2023
As a series of steamboats and trains carried Elisha’s body from Louisiana to Pennsylvania, thousands of Americans stood on riverbanks and alongside railroad tracks weeping, hats in hands, hands over hearts.
From "American Spirits" by Barb Rosenstock
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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.