Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A large heavy boat, usually having two masts and carrying fore-and-aft or lugsails.
  • noun A small open boat fitted with oars or sails, or both, and used primarily in shallow waters.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A light boat or vessel, with or without a mast or masts; a sloop.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Naut.) A boat.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun archaic A type of large boat; a sloop.
  • noun archaic A small boat, a dinghy.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French chaloupe, from Dutch sloep, sloop; see sloop, or perhaps from obsolete French chaloppe, nutshell (from Old French eschalope, from escale, eschale, shell, husk; see scale).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French chaloupe.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word shallop.

Examples

  • The sky was blossoming into stars above the afterglow; out to the east the moon was rising, and the sea beneath it was a thing of radiance and silver and glamour; and a little harbour boat that went sailing across it was transmuted into an elfin shallop from the coast of fairyland.

    Chronicles of Avonlea Lucy Maud 1912

  • The shallop was a serviceable vessel, and ran bravely before the wind on the calm sea.

    Marjorie 1898

  • The shallop was a long time getting clear of the point, having to row, but at last got up her sails and out of the harbor.

    The Mayflower and Her Log; July 15, 1620-May 6, 1621 — Complete Azel Ames 1876

  • Aspinet himself; while the first red man allowed to come on board the shallop was the owner of the corn "borrowed" by the Pilgrims, who now repaid its value twofold by an order for goods to be delivered at

    Standish of Standish A story of the Pilgrims 1862

  • The commander of the shallop was the savage named Ouagimou, who was on terms of friendship with Bessabez, chief of the river Norumbegue, of whom he asked the body of Panounias, [243] who had been killed.

    Voyages of Samuel De Champlain — Volume 02 Samuel de Champlain 1601

  • For these infractions the mutineers put Hudson, his seventeen-year old son, and seven others loyal to the captain on a small boat (known as a shallop) and set them adrift.

    Spero News 2009

  • Other Iroquois tried to board the shallop from their war canoes.

    Champlain's Dream David Hackett Fischer 2008

  • They were larger than a shallop and smaller than an ocean-going navire.

    Champlain's Dream David Hackett Fischer 2008

  • In the summer another six or eight had returned from the farm on Cap Tourmente, and eleven arrived in the shallop that so displeased Champlain.

    Champlain's Dream David Hackett Fischer 2008

  • Champlain wrote: On June 20, a shallop arrived from Sainte-Croix which gave us news of the arrival of forty canoes, which were the Bésérévis [his name for the Nipissing], and with them a French interpreter whom the Sieur de Caën had sent the previous year [1632] to encourage the Indians to come for trade, and he asked the sieur de Champlain to come quickly to Sainte-Croix, desiring to see him.

    Champlain's Dream David Hackett Fischer 2008

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • "'What's a shallop?' I asked, my curiosity getting the better of my fear of ignorance.

    He was not angry at the question but only laughed as he set about trying to free the embedded axe from the chopping block.

    'I don't really know,' he said. 'It's just the word they always used, 'shallop'. It's sort of a small open boat. You can row it or use sails. Sort of like a dory. I think it's originally a French word.'"

    - 'No Great Mischief', Alistair MacLeod.

    February 19, 2008