Word.ws English Dictionary

jolly boat

jolly boat noun: a type of ship's boat of the 17th to 19th centuries, used mainly to ferry personnel to and from the ship.

Noun

jolly boat (plural jolly boats)

  1. A type of ship's boat of the 17th to 19th centuries, used mainly to ferry personnel to and from the ship.
    • Boats for Ships. A Jolly-boat. A Long-boat. A Skiffe. A Pinnace. A Water-boat. A Yaul.1696, John Houghton, Collection for Improvement of Husbandry and Trade, London, Issue 187
    • [H]e went down the ship's side […] and, seating himself in the stern sheets of the jolly-boat, took the helm, pushed off, and four young lads rowed him ashore.1808–10, William Hickey, Memoirs of a Georgian Rake, Folio Society 1995, p. 346
    Synonyms:
    jolly

Synonyms of jolly boat

Forms of jolly boat

pluraljolly boats
alternative formjollyboat

Origin of jolly boat

Uncertain.

Questions about jolly boat

What does jolly boat mean?
Jolly boat means a type of ship's boat of the 17th to 19th centuries, used mainly to ferry personnel to and from the ship.
What part of speech is jolly boat?
Jolly boat is a noun.
What is the plural of jolly boat?
The plural of jolly boat is jolly boats.

Words near jolly boat in the dictionary

  1. jolly along
  2. Jolly balance
  3. Jolly balances
  4. jolly bean
  5. jolly beans
  6. jolly boat
  7. jolly boats
  8. jolly boy
  9. jolly boys
  10. jolly D
  11. jolly good show

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: jolly boat (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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