Crossword clues for flatboat
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Flatboat \Flat"boat`\, n. A boat with a flat bottom and square ends; -- used for the transportation of bulky freight, especially in shallow waters.
Wiktionary
n. A boxy, flat-bottomed boat used for carrying livestock, freight, and people on rivers.
WordNet
Wikipedia
A flatboat is a rectangular flat-bottomed boat with NOTE: "[bracketed]" wordings in the quote below are notes added to clarify
There were a variety of specialized flatboats [eventually developed] to ship cargo to world markets. Some [later, meaning c. 1815–20, after steam boats became common] flatboats were built with raked bows to be used on return trips alongside steamboats, serving as 'fuel flats', first hauling wood, then coal. These flatboats with raked bows evolved into coal boats. (Later,) Coal boats were tied together in fleets to be pushed by steamboats. Those coal boats evolved into the steel barges of today (plying the rivers servicing the coal fields of the Ohio River watershed). —Nancy Jordan Blackmore, Janes Saddlebagsquare ends used to transport freight and passengers on inland waterways. The flatboat could be any size, but essentially it is large, sturdy tub with a hull that displaces water and so floats in the water. This differentiates the flatboat from the raft, which floats on the water.
A flatboat is almost always a one-way vessel, and is usually dismantled for lumber when it reaches its downstream destination.
Usage examples of "flatboat".
And besides, I will find passage on a flatboat going upstream, not a coach.
Arthur realized they were bringing the flatboat to a halt alongside Kerry.
He glanced at the crude box built on one end of the flatboat and suppressed another groan.
Arthur managed to lift his head and peer to the right, to the flatboat slowly approaching from a great distance.
Reciting a colorful little something in his mind, Arthur hoisted himself onto the flatboat and without being told, settled in, wedging himself between the crate of chickens and the sow, almost nose to nose.
Distracted, she looked out the window and saw a flatboat pulling up at the bayou dock.
Mauschel was waiting for him in a small flatboat hung with red fishskin-lanterns.
She entered a woods that was strung with air vines and cobwebs and dotted with palmettos and followed the edge of a coulee to a bayou where a flatboat loaded with Spanish moss was moored in a cluster of cypress trees.
In minutes the current in the bayou would reverse itself, and the flatboat, which looked like any other that was used to harvest moss for mattress stuffing, would be poled downstream into a saltwater bay where a larger boat waited for the five black people who sat huddled in the midst of the moss, the women in bonnets, the men wearing flop hats that obscured their faces.
A few minutes later Flower looked back over her shoulder and saw the flatboat slip through the cypress trees into a layer of moonlit fog that reminded her of the phosphorous glow given off by a grave.
He said he had met some of the crew of a flatboat on Tchoupitoulas Street and planned to go with them tonight.
Ryla Curran, the daughter of an American who settled his family in New Orleans after years of running a flatboat up and down the river.
The inflection of her voice added that as far as she was concerned, the American was a tobacco-chewing flatboat man with fleas in his crotch.
Most of the grog shops were open, barkeeps dispensing Injun whisky from barrels to long-haired flatboat men across planks laid on barrels, white men grouped around makeshift tables playing cards, and small groups of black men visible in alleyways, on their knees in the mud and weeds, shooting dice.
He started to move on but a bearded flatboat man was suddenly in front of him, piggy eyes glittering with a half-drunken hangover and tobacco crusted in his beard.