boat
/boʊ̯t/noun, verb
boat is spelled B-O-A-T. The wrong spelling people search most is boaut: about 10 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 2,500 of all searches for the word. Boat is a noun meaning “A small, usually open craft used for travelling over water, propelled by oars, motor or wind. Usually…”. The plural of boat is boats.
How many letters and syllables are in boat?
| Letters | 4: B-O-A-T |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 |
| In writing | 51 times per million words; the 1,993rd most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, boaut, about 10 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
| Rhymes with |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How do you spell boat?
Boat is spelled B-O-A-T. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 2,273 of the searches for boat in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is boat?
Boat appears 51 times per million words in written English, the 1,993rd most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce boat?
- UK /bəʊ̯t/
- US /boʊ̯t/
- Australia /bəʉ̯t/
Boat has one syllable.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Naomi_Persephone_Amethyst_(NaomiAmethyst)-boat.wav, En-us-boat.ogg, EN-AU_ck1_boat.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with boat?
The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as boat from its last stressed vowel (/oʊt/):
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of boat
- boats plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- boating participle, present
- boated participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does boat mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A small, usually open craft used for travelling over water, propelled by oars, motor or wind. Usually contrasted with "ship".
We can't get everything in the boat. We'll leave this stuff behind.
- 2
A submarine.
- 3
colloquialA large, ocean-going ship.
- 4
A shallow jug used to serve sauces or other liquid foods.
a stone boat; a gravy boat
- 5
A vessel used to store the incense to be burned during a service; an incense boat.
- 6
slangA full house.
- 7
USinformalA car, especially a large or heavy one.
Near-synonyms: land yacht, sled
- 8
One of two possible conformations of cyclohexane rings (the other being chair), shaped roughly like a boat.
verb
- 1
To travel by boat.
- 2
To transport in a boat.
to boat goods
- 3
obsoleteslangTo transport (deport to a penal colony).
- 4
To place in a boat.
to boat oars
noun
- 1
Acronym of best of all time.
- 2
UKAcronym of byway open to all traffic.
noun
- 1
Alternative form of BOAT.
noun
- 1
Alternative form of BOAT.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Boat in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | bateau, barque, nacelle, navire |
| German | Boot, Schiff |
| Portuguese | barco, bote |
| Spanish | barca, bote, barco , barquear |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does boat come from?
From Middle English bot, boot, boet, boyt (“boat”), from Old English bāt (“boat”), from Proto-West Germanic *bait, from Proto-Germanic *baitaz, *baitą (“boat, small ship”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeyd- (“to break, split”) (whence also fissure via Latin). Cognate with Old Norse beit (“boat”), Middle Dutch beitel (“little boat”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).