catamaran

Noun

catamaran (plural catamarans)

1. A twin-hulled ship or boat.
   • Swift over the seas the vessel drives; Madras appears in sight. The first object catching the eye, upon the anchor being cast, was an Indian upon his catamaran, who, making a sudden motion, sprung to the side of the ship, grappled there for a moment, and the next was on the deck.1838, [Letitia Elizabeth] Landon (indicated as editor), chapter XV, in Duty and Inclination: […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 218

   Synonyms:

   twinhull, cat

2. (colloquial, obsolete, rare) A quarrelsome woman; a scold.
   • She meddles with my prescriptions for your wife; she doctors the infant in private: you'll never have a quiet house or a quiet wife as long as that old Catamaran is here.1889, William Makepeace Thackeray, Hobson's Choice
3. (obsolete) A raft of three pieces of wood lashed together, the middle piece being longer than the others, and serving as a keel on which the rower squats while paddling.
   • Three or four strange-looking things now came close to our boat, which I understood were called ‘catamarans’, consisting of nothing more than two or three large trees, the trunk part only strongly lashed together, upon which sat two men nearly in a state of nature […] .1808–10, William Hickey, Memoirs of a Georgian Rake, Folio Society 1995, p. 90
4. (obsolete) An old kind of fireship.