riverboatn.
/ˈrɪvəbəʊt/, U.S. /ˈrɪvərˌboʊt/ A boat designed for use on rivers. In later use frequently with reference to large paddle steamers used as passenger boats on the Mississippi River.
ΘΚΠ
society > travel > travel by water > vessel, ship, or boat > [noun]
shipc725
beamOE
boardOE
bargea1300
steera1300
vessela1300
treea1382
loomc1400
man1473
ark1477
bottom1490
keela1547
riverboat1565
craft1578
pine1592
class1596
flood-bickerer1599
pitchboard1599
stern-bearer1599
wooden horse1599
wooden isle1603
water treader?1615
water house1616
watercraft1618
machine1637
prore1642
lightman1666
embarkation1690
bark1756
prowa1771
Mudian1813
bastiment1823
hooker1823
nymph1876
M.F.V.1948
society > travel > travel by water > vessel, ship, or boat > mechanically propelled vessels > [noun] > propelled by paddles > paddle-steamer
riverboat1565
wheel-boat1834
paddle steamer1848
paddlewheeler1876
paddler1890
paddle1897
society > travel > travel by water > vessel, ship, or boat > vessel for transporting people or goods > passenger vessel > [noun] > on rivers or canals
riverboat1565
budgerow1727
passage-barge1804
fly-boat1841
bateau-mouche1903
1565 T. Cooper Thesaurus Fluuiatiles naues, riuer or fresh water boates.
a1656 J. Ussher Ann. World (1658) vi. 196 60 thousand men, called Warriours, with an exceeding great multitude of river boats, fitted to fight in the river Nile, if need should be.
1700 G. Booth tr. Diodorus Siculus Hist. Libr. ii. i. 61 She stood in need of many River-boats to pass it in Order to repress the Indians.
1768 J. O'Brien Focalóir Gaoidhilge-Sax-bhéarla 34/2 A wherry, a small river-boat, to transport passengers.
1796 Monthly Mag. Nov. 831/1 One object of the company is to bring the Staffordshire potteries, &c. to London in river boats.
1841 Penny Cycl. XIX. 460/2 The Lippe..is navigated..by small river-boats.
1891 C. Roberts Adrift in Amer. 16 This was the first time that I ever saw a real Mississippi river boat.
1925 J. Dos Passos Manhattan Transfer ii. iii. 179 It makes me feel that I'm in the tropics sitting in a jujube grove waiting for the riverboat to take us up some ridiculous melodramatic river all set about with fevertrees.
1942 Mariner's Mirror 28 31 In Iraq the meaning of the word ballam has been extended to denote any double-ended, canoe-shaped river boat, even if of considerable tonnage.
1993 Beautiful Brit. Columbia Winter 47/2 Their store was a regular stop for riverboats chugging the capricious Fraser to and from Tête Juane Cache upriver.
2006 C. Frazier Thirteen Moons iii. i. 179 I boarded the first riverboat of my life—a sort of broken-backed stern-wheeler in bad need of scraping and painting.
Compounds
riverboat casino n. a casino located on a riverboat.In certain U.S. states, riverboat casinos are exempted from prohibitions on casino gambling; the ‘riverboat’ housing such a casino may in some cases be a permanently moored vessel, or a structure built over a waterway.
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1958 San Mateo (Calif.) Times 29 Nov. (Weekend section) 8 a/2 Bret Maverick is relieved of his riverboat casino loot.
1995 Economist 14 Oct. 74/1 Riverboat casinos line the Mississippi river and a huge land-based casino is under construction in the centre of New Orleans.
2003 N.Y. Times (National ed.) 3 Jan. a18/1 Video poker machines..and riverboat casinos spread into such improbable venues as Iowa and South Carolina.
riverboat gambler n. originally and chiefly U.S. a person who gambles professionally on (Mississippi) riverboats, esp. used as the type of a person who is regarded variously as bold, reckless, dashing, sharp, unethical, etc.
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1920 San Francisco Chron. 11 Oct. 6/2 Mayo is seen to good advantage playing the part of the river-boat gambler.
1963 Washington Post 19 Jan. c3/1 He can spot a panhandler as quickly as a riverboat gambler can spot a stacked deck.
1986 N. Hentoff Boston Boy 7 A tall, burly, dark-haired man with a riverboat gambler's long, flowing moustache.
1992 J. Michener World is my Home i. 7 Six bottles of Southern Comfort..which he shared with his friends as if he were a Mississippi riverboat gambler softening them up for a scam.
2008 N.Y. Times (National ed.) 20 Aug. c18/4 Just three days before the Olympic final..he patched together a new..routine... ‘He's always been kind of a riverboat gambler... We took a risk, and it paid off.’
riverboat gambling n. gambling conducted on a riverboat, or in a riverboat casino.
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1953 Times 13 July 10/7 A pleasant enough music comedy set in the South which pops back and forwards between the present day and the days of river-boat gambling 60 or so years ago.
2004 N.Y. Times 25 Apr. ix. 1/2 A three-hour drive from Dallas, Shreveport, La., is a home of riverboat gambling.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2010; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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