cockboat

noun

a small boat, especially one used as a tender.

Origin:
1400–50; late Middle English cokboot, variant of cogboot, equivalent to cog boat, ship (akin to Old Norse kuggi small ship) + boot boat

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World English Dictionary

cockboat or cockleboat (ˈkɒkˌbəʊt, ˈkɒk^əlˌbəʊt)

—n
	any small boat

[C15 cokbote, perhaps ultimately from Late Latin caudica dug-out canoe, from Latin caudex tree trunk]

cockleboat or cockleboat

—n

[C15 cokbote, perhaps ultimately from Late Latin caudica dug-out canoe, from Latin caudex tree trunk]

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00:10

Cockboat is always a great word to know.

So is flibbertigibbet. Does it mean:

an arrangement of five objects, as trees, in a square or rectangle, one at each corner and one in the middle.

a chattering or flighty, light-headed person.

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"From an old ruined fort on Staten Island, I have loved to watch all day some vessel whose name I had read in the morning through the telegraph glass, when she first came upon the coast, and her hull heaved up and glistened in the sun, from the moment when the pilot and most adventurous news-boats met her, past the Hook, and up the narrow channel of the wide bay, till she was boarded by the health officer, and took her station at quarantine, or held on her unquestioned course to the wharves of New York. It was interesting, too, to watch the less adventurous newsman, who made his assault as the vessel swept through the Narrows, defying plague and quarantine law, and, fastening his little cockboat to her huge side, clambered up and disappeared in the cabin. And then I could imagine what momentous news was being imparted by the captain, which no American ear had ever heard, that Asia, Africa, Europe—were all sunk; for which at length he pays the price, and is seen descending the ship's side with his bundle of newspapers,... to dispose of his wares to the highest bidder, and we shall ere long read something startling,—"By the latest arrival,"M"by the good ship—M.""

-Henry David Thoreau

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