noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A small, powerful boat used to push or pull barges or to help maneuver larger vessels.
2. 2
   a powerful small boat designed to pull or push larger ships wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

tugboatcanoecruiserferrytowboat

Example

More examples

"That sounds like our tugboat horn."

Etymology

From tug + boat.

Related phrases

monthly tugboat

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