Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A light boat propelled by sails or oars, formerly used as a tender for merchant and war vessels.
- n. Any of various kinds of ship's boats.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Nautical: A small vessel, generally with two masts rigged like those of a schooner, and capable of being propelled by oars; a galley: so called because built of pine wood; poetically, any light sailing-vessel.
- n. A large double-banked ship's boat.
- n. A procuress; a prostitute.
Wiktionary
- n. nautical A light boat, traditionally propelled by sails, but may also be a rowboat. Pinnaces are usually messenger boats, carrying messages among the larger ships of a fleet.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A small vessel propelled by sails or oars, formerly employed as a tender, or for coast defence; -- called originally,
spynace orspyne . - n. A man-of-war's boat.
- n. obsolete A procuress; a pimp.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a boat for communication between ship and shore
Etymologies
- From Middle French pinasse, from Spanish pinaza, from pino ("pine") + -aza. (Wiktionary)
- French pinace, from Old French, probably from Old Spanish pinaza, from pino, pine tree, boat, from Latin pīnus; see peiə- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“An 'I'd ha' done it, too, only the pinnace from the flagship was just comin 'alongside.”
“The name pinnace was applied to vessels having a wide range in tonnage, etc., from a craft of hardly more than ten or fifteen tons to one of sixty or eighty.”
The Mayflower and Her Log; July 15, 1620-May 6, 1621 — Complete
“Thither we went in a fine boat they call a pinnace, with six oars; his servants, and horses, and baggage going in the ferry-boat.”
“What shall we call the pinnace when she is launched, Mistress White? ”
“The _Mary_ -- for so Fritz now called the pinnace -- had been ten days at sea, the wind had died away, and for some time scarcely a zephyr had ruffled the surface of the water, the sails were lazily flapping against the mast, and but for the currents, the voyagers would have been almost stationary.”
“The pinnace was a big, roomy, and rather heavy boat, pulling ten oars, double banked, and mounting a nine-pounder gun in her bows.”
“That our pinnace was a vessel able to withstand such waves as would be met with in the ocean, can be believed when you remember that she was one half the size of the Goodspeed, which we counted a ship.”
“calculating," "reckoning," and inexhaustible curiosity of the crew; but their admiration of the ship, her guns, her stores, and her tackle, were boundless; they felt that their pinnace was a mere toy in comparison.”
“I would not have meddled with this subject if R. G., getting on a wrong scent, had not arrived at the very extraordinary conclusion that Bramhall meant a "pinnace," and an "offensive composition well known to sailors!”
“In the mean time, our (hip's company were ftrangcly divid - ed in their opinion: fome were very pofuive, that ic was the Marquis come out of port; and, to confirm this, they affcrtcd, that the fail had no fore top-maft; upon which we recalled the pinnace, put a cap aboard her for the Marquis, and then fent her away again; and by this time it was noon.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘pinnace’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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Gene Wolfe
Please contribute your favorite words from any of Gene Wolfe’s books to this prize-winning list.
In case you come across words in this list which are too commonplace to fit in, please ...gallipot, roost, badelaire, oblesque, execration, dhole, amschaspand, arctother, chalcedony, penitence, asimi, autarch and 839 more...
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phrontistery - p
from phrontistery.info
pabouche, pabulous, pabulum, pacable, pace, pachydermia, pachyglossal, pachymeter, pachynsis, paciferous, pacificate, pactolian and 1766 more...
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Davenport
words looked up recently from reading Guy Davenport
flenite, sampan, provender, comitatus, cycladic, surd, scialytic, lignite, plangencies, fugal, zamindary, macaque and 112 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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Good Words
fenestering, cetic, immanent, quickening, archetypal, shibboleth, soma, wetware, heritable, Apotheosis, halcyon, cellar door and 482 more...
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Quaintnesses
For those who wish no words were ever forgotten
opprobrium, tedium, encomium, odium, ire, enmity, beguile, wile, brazen, popinjay, squit, hoity-toity and 1161 more...
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Verbalitis
syncretic
anecdotal, phthisis, serendipitous, slapper, syncretic, sesquipedalian, hysteresis, polt, noyade, crocket, irenic, masquerade and 283 more...
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Ute
Durable items invented by Hom. Sap.
alpenhorn, matchbox, plinth, pillow, cantilever, fulcrum, troika, cloverleaf, nib, wheelbarrow, dictabelt, cockpit and 184 more...
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Summer 12
accoast, agog, alarums, alembic, anapest, animadvert, anoraked, apostasy, aquarelle, argentated, aubergine, auscultation and 197 more...
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zetadiction
words that embody life
hydrae, kleptocracy, curmudgeon, wordie, risotto, qi, pulchritudinous, micropolitan, schadenfreude, neolithic, experimentalist, zeta and 477 more...
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ash
ash
abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abide, abject, abjure and 4874 more...
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nfk9595's Words
magnetohydrodynamics, bovine, epistle, gargantuan, kerfuffle, verbiage, morose, coup de main, elan, achtung, uber, verboten and 497 more...
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the shipwright
Floating and water vessels of all sorts.
mothership, frigate, xebec, ship-of-the-line, sloop, schooner, cutter, clipper, coracle, skiff, dhow, junk and 40 more...
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mgoormastic's list
Interesting words used in The Three Musketeers by Dumas.
baldric, auberge, mercer, calotte, apologue, parblue, ma foi, mordieu, ventrebleu, capon, diffident, ingenuous and 58 more...
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Quaxanta's Words
eunoia, captcha, winsome, pandemonium, sfumato, lissotrichous, magenta, glossolalia, nadir, mimsy, doppelganger, milquetoast and 14 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for pinnace.

jaime_d From "Au Tombeau de Charles Fourier" by Guy Davenport Jan 19, 2010