Word.ws English Dictionary

pontoon

/pɒnˈtuːn/

pontoon noun: a flat-bottomed boat or other floating structure used as a buoyant support for a temporary bridge, dock or landing stage.

pontoon: a boat with people on it in the water
Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on Unsplash

Noun (1)

pontoon (plural pontoons)

  1. A flat-bottomed boat or other floating structure used as a buoyant support for a temporary bridge, dock or landing stage.
    • Thanks to the previous experience of the chief performers, to careful preparation and rehearsal, and to perfect weather conditions, they watched in breath-bated silence the spectacle of the huge bulk moving without a hitch into position over the temporary pier caps on which it settled as water...1959 May, L. T. C. Rolt, “Centenary of the Royal Albert Bridge at Saltash”, in Railway Magazine, page 310
  2. (broadly) A bridge with floating supports.
    Synonyms:
    pontoon bridge
  3. A box used to raise a sunken vessel.
    • Near-synonyms: caisson, camel, sea camel
    Synonyms:
    caisson, camel, sea camel
  4. A float of a seaplane.
  5. A lighter or barge used for loading or unloading ships.

Noun (2)

pontoon (countable and uncountable, plural pontoons)

  1. (uncountable) A card game in which the object is to obtain cards whose value adds up to, or nearly to, 21 but not exceed it.
    Synonyms:
    vingt-et-un
  2. (countable) A two-card hand totalling 21 in this game.
    Synonyms:
    natural

pontoon meaning in Malayalam and Kannada

pontoon in Malayalam

അടി പരന്ന തോണി, തോണിച്ചങ്ങാടം, കടത്തുവള്ളം, ഒരുതരം ചീട്ടുകളി

pontoon in Kannada

ಚಟ್ಟೆ ಓಡ, ಚಪ್ಪಟೆ ಓಡ

Synonyms of pontoon

All synonyms of pontoon

Forms of pontoon

pluralpontoons

Plural of pontoon: pontoons

Origin of pontoon

Borrowed from Middle French ponton, from Old French ponton, from Latin pontō, pontōnem (“ferryboat”), from pōns (“bridge”).

Probably from vingt-un, an obsolete variant of vingt-et-un (“twenty-one”), from French.

Words formed from pontoon

Phrases with pontoon

Words that rhyme with pontoon

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about pontoon

What does pontoon mean?
Pontoon means a flat-bottomed boat or other floating structure used as a buoyant support for a temporary bridge, dock or landing stage.
What is pontoon in Malayalam?
Pontoon in Malayalam is അടി പരന്ന തോണി, തോണിച്ചങ്ങാടം, കടത്തുവള്ളം. See Pontoon meaning in Malayalam.
What part of speech is pontoon?
Pontoon is a noun.
How do you pronounce pontoon?
Pontoon is pronounced /pɒnˈtuːn/.
What is the plural of pontoon?
The plural of pontoon is pontoons.

Words near pontoon in the dictionary

  1. pontoniine
  2. pontoniines
  3. pontonnier
  4. pontonniers
  5. pontons
  6. pontoon
  7. pontoon bridge
  8. pontoon bridges
  9. pontoon parties
  10. pontoon party
  11. pontooned

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pontoon (page history and authors); pontoon (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); pontoon (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-pontoon.ogg.

Cite this entry: “pontoon.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pontoon. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.