Keelboat

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Any sailboat having a keel (as opposed to a centerboard or daggerboard).

    "By and by the steamboat intruded. Then for fifteen or twenty years, these men continued to run their keelboats down-stream, and the steamers did all of the upstream business, the keelboatmen selling their boats in New Orleans, and returning home as deck passengers in the steamers."

  2. 2
    river boat with a shallow draught and a keel but no sails; used to carry freight; moved by rowing or punting or towing wordnet

Example

More examples

"By and by the steamboat intruded. Then for fifteen or twenty years, these men continued to run their keelboats down-stream, and the steamers did all of the upstream business, the keelboatmen selling their boats in New Orleans, and returning home as deck passengers in the steamers."

Etymology

From keel + boat.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.