Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A light, open, slender boat that has pointed ends and is propelled by paddles.
- v. To carry or send by canoe.
- v. To travel in or propel a canoe.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A light boat designed to be propelled by a paddle or paddles held in the hands without fixed supports. The canoes of savage races are constructed of bark (as the birch-bark canoe of the American Indians) or hides, or formed of the trunks of trees, excavated by burning or cutting them into a suitable shape. The birch-bark canoes are light and can be carried on the shoulders, one large enough for four persons sometimes weighing no more than 40 or 50 pounds. The modern canoe, employed chiefly for pleasure, is a light boat, carvel- or clinker-built, sharp at both ends and with a beam one eighth or one sixth its length; it is usually built of wood, but sometimes of canvas, paper, galvanized iron, or other material, and often provided with sails. The typical wooden cruising canoe is about 14 feet long, 27 to 30 inches beam, decked over, and fitted with water-tight compartments. The paddle is 8 or 10 feet long, and the sails are usually lugs.
- Canoe-shaped. Applied by Pennsylvania geologists to the mountains of that State whose structure gives them a resemblance in form to an Indian canoe. There are anticlinal and synclinal canoe mountains, the one being like the other inverted.
- To paddle a canoe; sail in a canoe.
Wiktionary
- n. A small long and narrow boat, propelled by one or more people (depending on the size of canoe), using single-bladed paddles. The paddlers face in the direction of travel, in either a seated position, or kneeling on the bottom of the boat. Canoes are open on top, and pointed at both ends.
- n. slang An oversize, usually older, luxury car.
- v. To ride or paddle a canoe.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A boat used by rude nations, formed of trunk of a tree, excavated, by cutting of burning, into a suitable shape. It is propelled by a paddle or paddles, or sometimes by sail, and has no rudder.
- n. A boat made of bark or skins, used by savages.
- n. A light pleasure boat, especially designed for use by one who goes alone upon long excursions, including portage. It it propelled by a paddle, or by a small sail attached to a temporary mast.
- v. To manage a canoe, or voyage in a canoe.
WordNet 3.0
- v. travel by canoe
- n. small and light boat; pointed at both ends; propelled with a paddle
Etymologies
- Adopted in 16th century from Spanish canoa, borrowed in turn by Columbus from Taino kanoa ("dugout canoe"). (Wiktionary)
- French canoe and Spanish canoa (French, from Spanish), of Cariban origin. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“And then there's the Guinean-born guy suffering from what he describes as canoe sickness, an illness that keeps him from his dream of playing professional soccer.”
“The bottom of his canoe is a wrack of fish — pike and walleyes stacked like driftwood.”
“We decided on the word canoe, which is a word that Christopher Columbus heard from some of the Indians.”
“Did I venture to run the wildest rapids of the creek in the clumsy box which I called my canoe, she trusted her newest frock and ribbons to my seamanship.”
“It was what they call a canoe (so the Flamingoes told me), and most of the men in it were black; but there was one white man who had a curious stick in his hand, which he every now and then would point at some bird or animal, and then he made tire come out of the stick, and the bird or animal generally got hurt.”
“As an example, the word "canoe" is made up of four keystroke pairs.”
“But where the currents come together he canoe is turned over.”
“We'll have to portage," Corliss said, as Frona turned the canoe from the bank.”
“It was in the fall of 1896 that the two partners came down to the east bank of the Yukon, and drew a Peterborough canoe from a moss-covered cache.”
“She was too gentle to tyrannize over her playfellow, yet she had ruled him abjectly, except when in canoe, or on horse or surf-board, at which times he had taken charge and she had rendered obedience.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘canoe’.
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• Wordies talk about themselves
Sometimes users are also persons.
llogos, peter stickles, old age, 39, insomnia, frown of approval, chuck norris, ovular, gay, fencing, rabbits, seven empty cups ... and 137 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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Genes
Interesting gene names. Some of these may have changed recently (to something less offensive/funny).
http://www.genenames.org/
tinman, agnostic, dreadlocks, Van Gogh, fruitless, lava lamp, ariadne, cheap date, ken and barbie, I'm not dead yet, I'm not dead yet 2, manic fringe and 1192 more... -
common UA vocab. in US
Interesting, there is a traditional vocabulary of an Ukrainian, that differs from vocabulary of average American. It would be nice to explore it.
jackdaw, incongruous, cassock, vivid, magpie, humdrum, amongst, wonder, wandering, wheedling, wheedle, osseous and 368 more...
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Yes We Can
can-, -can, or even -can-.
candelabra, parcan, incantation, Canada, candida, Candide, toucan, can-can, cancan, cannabis, incandescent, canticle and 26 more...
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EN - rare verbs
fornicate, enfranchise, tweet, natter, fetter, devil, cork, bunker, canoe, backstroke, carom, queer and 52 more...
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Disturbing definitions from the Centu...
Although the Century Dictionary has some exquisite definitions which exhibit attention to scientific detail and respect for terms, ideas, and technology that might otherwise be forgotten, this wind...
cockshy, homosexuality, niggard, sodomy, Creole, promiscuity, savage, ass, hamfatter, ill-gendered, madras, hydrencephalocele and 22 more...
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Out to Sea
If I had a boat
I'd go out on the ocean
And if I had a pony
I'd ride him on my boat
And we could all together
Go out on the ocean
Me upon my pony on my boat.boat, ship, skiff, barge, canoe, catamaran, yacht, scow, lifeboat, launch, ketch, dory and 303 more...
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Dan: You read this already. — Your p...
Long ago, I learned a useful habit from a good friend: Every time he looked up a word in his dictionary, he’d put a mark next to it. His explanation for this was vague at best, but I understood a...
dittography, haplology, haplography, idiomology, cacoepy, orthoepist, psellism, pronunciation spe..., galbe, theropod, publican, sciolist and 111 more...
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Twitter favorites
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favorite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
grabbable, retuiteando, leaving, fantastic, absolutely, kurwa, hella, ridic, underpass, hate, interlude, plush and 2369 more... -
eggplantia5's Words
scintillate, marvel, cranberry, oscillate, triumph, bamboozle, grimace, magical, book, hexagon, cipher, compendium and 2727 more...
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Words Covered in Faery Dust (C)
words that evoke magic, mystery, mayhem, magnificence or anything else that glimmers in the grass
cacophony, cad, cajole, calamity, camomile, camphor, candlemas, candy apple, canopy, canticle, caparison, caravan and 304 more...
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huck finnian
ain't, stretchers, without, sivilize, hogshead, victuals, bulrushers, tolerable, goggles, middling, reckoned, who-whooing and 287 more...
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Tuesday words
just the next words that come along
nasality, transignification, lapsarian, disciple, slanguage, atwitter, avast, ahoy, asleep, awake, hymnody, glissade and 573 more...
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and Bristol fashion
being items related to boats, ships, sailing, nautical and naval lore &c.
sloop, frigate, brigantine, brig, grog, schooner, rig, sail, canvas, jib, forestay, cutter and 150 more...
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The not-necessarily-complete adventur...
A storage place for the words under which anecdotes, stories, and clearly madeupical happenings have been related by our favorite marsupial. Feel free to add.
sustainism, picking up black ..., wifebeater, button, canoe, dive, piñata, vermicompost
Tweets
Looking for tweets for canoe.
ruzuzu I've added it to my "Disturbing Definitions" list. Jul 28, 2011
bilby When I was wee, maybe 8 or so, my father built a canoe. He had access to the school woodworking room after hours and planed some plywood according to build-your-own plans then fibreglassed it. It did look very homemade but we were assured it was watertight. Anyway, for the maiden voyage, on the Goulburn River, it was my Dad and the older ones - brother Jeff and cousin Sally - who went out in it. I was looking away at the critical moment just after launch but reportedly someone got their paddle caught in someone else's fishing rod and there was a tangle and suddenly they were upside down. By the time our canoeists, and I use the term loosely, had bobbed to the surface (in their lifejackets, at least they got that right) the canoe was sailing away down the river. Soon after the grim (and wet) party set off in the car to the next crossing downstream where a bridge went over the river. We walked back up and found the remains of the canoe smashed up about some rocks in the middle of the water. "Huh, only rocks in the damn river and the canoe had to go and hit them!" my dad yelled. We left the bits there, unsalvageable bright yellow jigsaw pieces with their strips of fibreglass dangling. On the way home all was pretty silent. Until my sister said out loud, perhaps wondering how to grieve for a plaything we never got to toy with, "We didn't even get to name it."
"Rockdodger?" I suggested helpfully. Jul 28, 2011
bilby We have rude nations and savage races in the defs. Yikes. Jul 28, 2011
bilby Evildoer. Oct 9, 2009
hernesheir Shoe Oct 8, 2009
milosrdenstvi Do we know of any other instance of oe being pronounced this way? Oct 8, 2009
qroqqa I wonder why this is pronounced and spelt the way it is? The Haitian, Spanish, and original English was canoa, then English developed various spellings such as cano, canow, canoo. The last of these got established as the pronunciation (too late for the Great Vowel Shift to have caused it); while the anomalous spelling canoe (not from Dutch, which has cano) prevailed. Another such puzzle is lasso.
Aug 4, 2008
sonofgroucho Here's one! Dec 2, 2007