umiak

American  

[oo-mee-ak] / ˈu miˌæk /

Or oomiak

noun

1. an Inuit or Yupik open boat that consists of a wooden frame covered with skins and provided with several thwarts: used for transport of goods and passengers.

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umiak British  

/ ˈuːmɪˌæk /

noun

1. a large open boat made of stretched skins, used by Inuit Compare kayak

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Etymology

Origin of umiak

First recorded in 1760–70, umiak is from the Inuit word umiaq “women's boat”

Example Sentences

Both bodies were wrapped in blankets, placed in a native umiak to be towed to Point Barrow.

From Time Magazine Archive

His chronicle of a voyage in an umiak, an open skin-covered Eskimo craft, from Nome to a fragment of rock called King Island, is a masterpiece of terse narrative and clinical observation.

From Time Magazine Archive

An umiak started out on a journey, and the people in it were hurried and forgetful.

From Eskimo Folk-Tales by Worster, W. J. Alexander (William John Alexander)

And when he had straightened out all their arms, he went out of that house the strongest of all, and went out to his umiak and rowed away southwards with his wife.

From Eskimo Folk-Tales by Worster, W. J. Alexander (William John Alexander)

But his son, coming up from the sea with the other salmon, saw the umiak, and his father in it, weeping.

From Eskimo Folk-Tales by Worster, W. J. Alexander (William John Alexander)