Word of the Day:
pontoon
What It Means
A flat-bottomed boat or other floating structure used as a buoyant support for a temporary bridge, dock or landing stage.
A bridge with floating supports.
A box used to raise a sunken vessel.
Near-synonyms: caisson, camel, sea camel
Pontoon in Context
“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...”
Did You Know?
Borrowed from Middle French ponton, from Old French ponton, from Latin pontō, pontōnem (“ferryboat”), from pōns (“bridge”).
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: pontoon (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the word and reformatted its meaning, examples and origin.
Cite this entry: “pontoon.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pontoon. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
