a fee charged by certain ports to allow a ship to dock
keelage in American English
(ˈkilɪdʒ)
noun
a toll on a merchant ship entering a port
Word origin
[1670–80; keel1 + -age]This word is first recorded in the period 1670–80. Other words that entered Englishat around the same time include: episode, fund, guarantee, slump, template-age is a suffix typically forming mass or abstract nouns from various parts of speech,occurring originally in loanwords from French (voyage; courage) and productive in English with the meanings “aggregate” (coinage; peerage; trackage), “process” (coverage; breakage), “the outcome of” as either “the fact of” or “the physical effect or remains of”(seepage; wreckage; spoilage), “place of living or business” (parsonage; brokerage), “social standing or relationship” (bondage; marriage; patronage), and “quantity, measure, or charge” (footage; shortage; tonnage; towage)