lifeboat

English

Etymology

Etymology tree

English life

Proto-Indo-European *bʰeyd-

Proto-Indo-European *-os

Proto-Indo-European *bʰóydos

Proto-Germanic *baitaz

Proto-West Germanic *bait

Old English bāt

Middle English bot

English boat

English lifeboat

From life +‎ boat.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈlaɪfˌbəʊt/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈlaɪfˌboʊt/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

lifeboat (plural lifeboats)

1. (nautical) A boat especially designed for saving the lives of shipwrecked people or people in distress at sea (either launched from the shore with a crew, or else carried on board a larger ship).
   • 1971, Alice Cooper, Glen Buxton, Michael Bruce, Dennis Dunaway, Neal Smith, “Halo of Flies”, in Killer, performed by Alice Cooper:

     I've got a watch that turns into a lifeboat

   • 1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 322, about Port Eynon:

     In a corner of the churchyard, where old headstones mark the graves of many mariners, is a striking white statue of a lifeboatman, erected as a memorial to three members of the local lifeboat crew who lost their lives in 1916 while trying to reach a ship in distress.

2. (science fiction) An emergency vehicle carried aboard a spaceship.

Synonyms

• quarter boat, rowboat, raft

Derived terms

• LEM lifeboat
• lifeboat ethics
• lifeboatism
• lifeboatman
• lifeboatsman
• LM lifeboat
• lunar lifeboat

Translations

a boat to save shipwrecked people

• Arabic: قَارِب نَجَاةَ m (qārib najāha)
• Bulgarian: спасителна лодка (spasitelna lodka)
• Catalan: bot salvavides m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 救生船 (zh) (jiùshēngchuán), 救生艇 (zh) (jiùshēngtǐng)

• Czech: záchranný člun m
• Dutch: reddingsboot (nl) m or f
• Finnish: pelastusvene (fi)
• French: radeau de survie m
• German: Rettungsboot (de) n
• Gujarati: જીવાહોડી (jīvāhoḍī)
• Hebrew: סירת הצלה (he)
• Hungarian: mentőcsónak (hu)
• Icelandic: björgunarbátur (is) m
• Indonesian: sekoci (id)
• Italian: scialuppa (it) f
• Japanese: 救命ボート (きゅうめいボート, kyūmei bōto)
• Latvian: glābšanas laivas
• Māori: poti whakaora, poti kārewa
• Norman: baté d'sauvetage m
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: livbåt m

  Nynorsk: livbåt m

• Polish: łódź ratunkowa f
• Portuguese: barco salva-vidas m
• Russian: спаса́тельная ло́дка f (spasátelʹnaja lódka)
• Scottish Gaelic: bàta-teasairginn m, bàta-sàbhalaidh m
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: чамац за спасавање m

  Latin: čamac za spasavanje m

• Spanish: bote salvavidas m
• Swedish: livbåt (sv) c
• Thai: เรือชูชีพ
• Vietnamese: xuồng cứu sinh

Verb

lifeboat (third-person singular simple present lifeboats, present participle lifeboating, simple past and past participle lifeboated)

1. To rescue; to carry to safety