boat-keepern.
/ˈbəʊtˌkiːpə/, U.S. /ˈboʊtˌkipər/ 1. A person whose job is to manage or look after a boat.
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society > travel > travel by water > one who travels by water or sea > sailor > sailors involved in specific duties or activities > [noun] > watchman
boatwardOE
boat-keeper1596
1596 W. Raleigh Discoverie Guiana (new ed.) 21 100 gentlemen, soldiers, rowers, bote-keepers, boies, and of all sortes.
1769 W. Falconer Universal Dict. Marine at Keeper Boat-Keeper, one of the rowers, who remains..to take care of any boat.
1792 Gentleman's Mag. 62 i. 270 The natives..stole away the cutter one night, murdered the boat-keeper who was in her.
1804 G. Duff Gen. Orders Trafalgar 23 June in Mariner's Mirror 22 (1936) 93 The boats..are not to be suffered to lay alongside the Ship, except at Guess Warp, or moored astern with their fenders out and one boatkeeper in each boat.
1881 Cent. Mag. Dec. 178/1 The crew included four able seamen, a swarthy lascar cook, a cabin-boy, and the boat-keeper.
1977 P. O'Brian Mauritius Command iii. 63 Never you fret, I'll square our boat-keeper directly and take him out.
1994 Minding Helm App. F. 426 Regulations call for a candidate to spend at least 2 years as a junior apprentice before promotion to boat-keeper.
2. Newfoundland. A person who operates one or more private inshore fishing craft with the use of hired labour; (also) = planter n. 5. Cf. by-boat-keeper n. at by-boat n. Now historical.
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1671 Some Considerations New-found-land Trade 3 A number of these Boat-keepers joyn & fraight a Ship for the transportation of themselves and provisions... These (as others set forth by Merchants) Fish and labour very industriously.
1690 J. Child Disc. Trade x. 202 The Planters and Boat-keepers are generally such as were bred, and became expert at the cost of the Owners of Fishing Ships, which Planters and Boat-keepers enter very few new or green men.
1793 J. Reeves Hist. Newfoundland i. 28 The magistrates of the several western ports did permit passengers, and private boat-keepers, to transport themselves thither, to the detriment of the fishery.
1852 Colonial Church Chron. May 402 The boat-keepers voluntarily offered him a quintal of fish from every boat yearly.
1895 Eng. Illustr. Mag. Sept. 528/2 Had the season been good in proportion as it has proved bad, would the merchants or boat-keepers have raised the men's wages?
1911 J. D. Rogers Newfoundland ix. 200 The 40-ton ships which came and went, the boat-keepers who remained behind.
2009 S. T. Cadigan Newfoundland & Labrador iv. 80 The less than 25 planters and boatkeepers (property-owning fish producers).
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2012; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
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