ˈpeter-boat
[app. f. Peter n.1 + boat n.: cf. Peterman.]
Local name (chiefly on the Thames and adjacent coasts) for a decked fishing-boat smaller than a smack or yawl; also for a dredgerman's double-ended boat, travelling equally well bow or stern foremost.
| 1540 in R. G. Marsden Sel. Pl. Crt. Adm. (1894) I. 99, I..being in a certeyn petyr boat comyng toward the towne of Lye. 1607 Dekker & Webster Northw. Hoe ii. i. Wks. 1873 III. 20 If we haue but good draughts in my peeter-boate. 1769 Chron. in Ann. Reg. 69/1 Discovered by the people of a peterboat, on the shore somewhere below Gravesend. 1851 Mayhew Lond. Labour (1861) II. 148 The boats of the dredgermen are of a peculiar shape. They have no stern, but are the same fore and aft. They are called Peter boats. 1862 Catal. Internat. Exhib. II. xii. 18 Model of ‘Peterboat’, used in the whitebait fishery. |