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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
sampan
noun
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Motorized barges, sampans and lighters were moving on the water.
▪ The net on the sampan was swinging a little, in a light wind.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Sampan

Sampan \Sam"pan\, n. (Naut.) A Chinese boat from twelve to fifteen feet long, covered with a house, and sometimes used as a permanent habitation on the inland waters. [Written also sanpan.]

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
sampan

light Chinese boat, 1610s, from Chinese san pan, literally "three boards," from san "three" + pan "plank."

Wiktionary
sampan

n. (context nautical English) A flat-bottomed Chinese wooden boat propelled by two oars.

WordNet
sampan

n. an Asian skiff usually propelled by two oars

Wikipedia
Sampan

A sampan is a relatively flat bottomed Chinese wooden boat. Some sampans include a small shelter on board, and may be used as a permanent habitation on inland waters. Sampans are generally used for transportation in coastal areas or rivers, and are often used as traditional fishing boats. It is unusual for a sampan to sail far from land as they do not have the means to survive rough weather.

The word "sampan" comes from the original Hokkien term for the boats, 三板 (sam pan), literally meaning "three planks". The name referred to the hull design, which consists of a flat bottom (made from one plank) joined to two sides (the other two planks). The design closely resembles Western hard chine boats like the scow or punt.

Sampans may be propelled by poles, oars (particularly a single, long sculling oar called a yuloh) or may be fitted with outboard motors.

Sampans are still in use by rural residents of Southeast Asia, particularly Malaysia, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Burma ( Myanmar) and Vietnam.

Sampan (newspaper)

Sampan is a newspaper based in Chinatown in Boston, Massachusetts. It is New England's only bilingual Chinese and English newspaper. The newspaper was founded in 1972 by volunteers of the Asian American Civic Association, then known as the Chinese American Civic Association; its slogan is "Boston's oldest bilingual Chinese-English newspaper since 1972". It is distributed throughout Greater Boston and covers news of Boston's Chinatown as well as the Greater Boston Asian American community.

A sampan is a flat-bottomed wooden boat, still used today in parts of Southeast Asia for fishing, transportation or even habitation. It is a metaphor, which symbolizes that this newspaper would bring news of the Chinese community, in both Chinese and English, around the city of Boston, providing a means to acquire information about the community to non-English speakers as well as non-Chinese speakers.

Sampan primarily reports on the news of Chinatown and Asian Americans of Greater Boston. As a free, nonprofit newspaper, Sampan makes its profit almost entirely by advertisements.

Sampan (film)

Sampan aka San-Ban is a 1968 film which was the first feature directed, written and co-produced by Terry Bourke. The film was successful at the box office.

Usage examples of "sampan".

He rode in a sampan sculled by four of his best boatmen and guarded by nine of his select guards.

Opening the curtains of the sampan, Nishima saw small whitecaps sweeping across the lake and suddenly the sailboats seemed to be hurrying on their way.

Acolyte Tesseko sat in the prow watching the large junks and river barges as the sampan glided past them.

Lord of the Shonto sat beside his Spiritual Advisor in the sampan, saying nothing.

Komawara stepped into his sampan and seated himself without even a nod to his guard or boatmen, so lost in thought was he.

Jaku Katta watched his brother go, watched his sampan disappear into the mist and the traffic on the canal.

But if Okamoto or anybody else thought the sampan fleet could feed Oahu by itself .

Once the sampan sailed out onto the Pacific, though, things would get more complicated.

If three or four other boats could spy the sampan, Jiro could see them, too.

He would sooner have slammed the sampan into a pier than admitted that to his father.

You put somebody with a university degree in a shoe store or a grocery or out on a sampan and he starts wondering why the heck he bothered.

He used a pencil for a pointer to show just where the sampan had gone.

A clutch of junks, red sails catching the sun, hovered near an inlet, and a sampan glided by with a solitary figure standing at the scull.

When a small sampan loaded with fresh fruit came aside the longboat, he bought two oranges and presented them to her.

But the panicked sampan men ignored the desperate cries for help and left the swimmers to drown.