The Collaborative International Dictionary
Boat \Boat\ (b[=o]t), n. [OE. boot, bat, AS. b[=a]t; akin to Icel. b[=a]tr, Sw. b[*a]t, Dan. baad, D. & G. boot. Cf. Bateau.]
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A small open vessel, or water craft, usually moved by cars or paddles, but often by a sail.
Note: Different kinds of boats have different names; as, canoe, yawl, wherry, pinnace, punt, etc.
Hence, any vessel; usually with some epithet descriptive of its use or mode of propulsion; as, pilot boat, packet boat, passage boat, advice boat, etc. The term is sometimes applied to steam vessels, even of the largest class; as, the Cunard boats.
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A vehicle, utensil, or dish, somewhat resembling a boat in shape; as, a stone boat; a gravy boat.
Note: Boat is much used either adjectively or in combination; as, boat builder or boatbuilder; boat building or boatbuilding; boat hook or boathook; boathouse; boat keeper or boatkeeper; boat load; boat race; boat racing; boat rowing; boat song; boatlike; boat-shaped.
Advice boat. See under Advice.
Boat hook (Naut.), an iron hook with a point on the back, fixed to a long pole, to pull or push a boat, raft, log, etc.
--Totten.Boat rope, a rope for fastening a boat; -- usually called a painter.
In the same boat, in the same situation or predicament. [Colloq.]
--F. W. Newman.
WordNet
n. pole-handled hook used to pull or push boats
Wikipedia
A boat hook is part of boating equipment. Its most common use is as a docking and undocking aid. It may be similar to a pike pole, however it must have a blunt tip, for pushing during undocking, with a hook for docking. In addition, it may have a line attached to the other end, which may have a ring for this purpose.
It may be also used for pulling things out of water, such as debris or people, as well as for other fetching tasks.
Usage examples of "boat hook".
Obviously, no Indian had been along for some time for we found a cask of good brandy, and the wreck of a lifeboat still containing a sail and a boat hook.
Tall Man stood on the pulpit and used the boat hook to fend the bow away from the rocks.
Instead, the tip of the boat hook struck a color-spot on the creature just behind its jaw hinge.
The boarding ladder had been lowered and a crewman stood on the lower platform with a boat hook.
Pushing off the dock with a boat hook until it was free of the boathouse, he stepped the mast, raised the sail and lowered the centerboard.
With no hint of reverence for the dead, two crewmen jabbed a boat hook into the floating corpse and pulled it toward a stretcher, constructed from wire mesh, that was lowered into the water.
Arthur, boy, you get you a boat hook and fish up the bow line and make it fast when we come up on it, hear?