Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(a) (also cockboat) the vagina; thus a prostitute or mistress [cock n.³ (1)].

1762		E. Collins ‘On Miss W**DC**K’s’ Misc. 112: Why Peg, dost imagine there ever could be, A likeness between Edward’s Darling and thee? No, no, my dear Punk, you’re a different thing [...] Ned’s Cockboat was she, but you are the Town Lighter.
1772		Bridges Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 126: He peep’d in every coney borough, / Examin’d all their rotten boats, / And all the women’s petticoats.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1896		Farmer Vocabula Amatoria (1966) 194: Nacelle, f. The female pudendum; ‘the boat’.
1983		R. Klein Jailhouse Jargon and Street Sl. [unpub. ms.].
2001		D. Jenkins Money-Whipped Steer-Job 207: ‘We thought of beaver . . . wool . . . gash . . . donut . . . taco . . . c-word, of course . . . snatch . . . boat . . . box . . . clump . . . slice’ .

(b) (US) an airplane.

1916		V. Chapman letter 20 Feb. in Letters from France 166: The first time, I put my hand over for direction, and then, as it keeled round, pulled on the manche à ballage. Ordinarily this would make the boat go up, but here, you see, it pulled the nose inward [...] I had the feel of the air working hard on the upper wing surfaces.
1918		in Stars and Stripes 8 Feb. 8: The engine of my boat died on me just over Rombach [HDAS].
1936		(con. 1920s) Dos Passos Big Money in USA (1966) 962: It was a relief Bill Cermak was there to get the boat into the hangar.

(c) (also big boat) a large, trad. American car, esp. a large station wagon.

1912		Hopsville Kentuckian (KY) 30 Nov. 3/2: So he shot round the corner, exulting to feel / the way the old boat always answered her wheel.
1914		T.A. Dorgan Indoor Sports 15 June [synd. cartoon] This boat of mine has gone 65,000 miles [...] It’s the best engine that was ever built.
1919		C.H. Darling Jargon Book 4: Big Boat – A large automobile.
1919		H.C. Witwer Smile A Minute 291: I wouldn’t get in that boat for a cut of the Liberty Loan [...] If that thing’s a auto, I’m president of Samoa!
1921		N. Putnam West Broadway 107: But ye gobs [sic] and little fishes! We was to learn the real truth about why a car is called a boat!
1922		S. Lewis Babbitt (1974) 20: I don’t want to take the old boat but I promised couple o’ girls [...] I’d drive ’em.
1928		Helen Kane ‘Is Anything Wrong In That?’ 🎵 A man loaned me his Cadillac, [...] Well, it was so cold in that great big boat, / So, I just went and took his raccoon coat.
1931		T. Thursday ‘Dead Steal’ Detective Fiction Weekly 13 June 🌐 That boat looks and runs like new!
1939		J. Weidman What’s In It For Me? 254: For that boat of yours, they’d give you a damn nice allowance.
1940		S. McBarron ‘Coffin Custodian’ Ten Detective Aces Apr. 🌐 ‘If you don’t get that hospital destination out of your brain, I’ll splatter it all over your boat.’ [...] ‘Okay, mister. Where do you want I should drop ya?’.
1951		Kerouac On the Road (The Orig. Scroll) (2007) 330: Geeyah, roll old boat roll! That magnificent car made the wind roar.
1957		Kerouac On The Road (1972) 212: This boat cuts so fast that we can make it without any time trouble.
1973		M. Scorsese Mean Streets [film script] 14: This is some boat. Your father’s?
1977		J. Sayles Union Dues (1978) 204: We’re gonna [...] put this boat on cruisomatic over the Mystic River Bridge and up onto the Naweast Expressway.
1987		T. Wolfe Bonfire of the Vanities 40: A big white Pontiac Bonneville came barreling by, a real boat [...] the kind of twenty-foot frigate they stopped making about 1980.
1995		C. Hiaasen Stormy Weather 76: Tony’s huge boat of a Chevrolet.
1999		W. Mosley Walkin’ the Dog 93: All I got is room in this boat. Ride on up front with me.
2016		T. Robinson Rough Trade [ebook] I hadn’t driven a car in almost six years. And when I did, it certainly wasn’t the boat that Miss Kitty was.

(d) (US) a large shoe or boot.

1917		A. Baer Spring Fashions 20 Mar. [synd. col.] You never hear of policeman’s shoes being designed after any kind of boat except a canal boat.
1956		M. Hargrove Girl He Left 142: What have you got on those boats? Oil of chromium? [HDAS].
1973		Oui Mar. 69: On your feet you’ve got those stacked-heel, two-toned, perforated leather . . . boats.

(e) (US Und.) a freight car used to transport bootleg beer.

1928

Phila. Eve. Bulletin 5 Oct. 40/3: Here are a few more terms and definitions from the ‘Racket’ vocabulary: [...] ‘boat,’ a beer-laden freight car.

(f) (US) a large foot.

1992		R. Price Clockers 91: Too small for your fat fuckin’ boats.
1996		P. Cornwell Cause of Death (1997) 74: I feel sorry for a woman with boats that big.

(a) (UK tramp) a jail sentence; a life sentence; thus get the boat below.

1885

A. Griffiths Fast and Loose III 45: Say I have been copped, that I am going back to the ‘boat’ (penal servitude), and that I shall be away about three years.

(b) (US Und.) transportation from one prison to another; the mode of transport is irrelevant.

1903		A.H. Lewis Boss 34: Another yeep, an’ the boat’s waitin’ for you! You’ve been due at the Island for some time.
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 31/1: Boat, n. (P) A transfer of convicts from one prison to another. ‘I’m dropping in a tab (note) to make an Auburn boat.’.
1992		Bentley & Corbett Prison Sl. 9: Train Refers to prisoners being transported from one institution to another. (Archaic: boat, draft).

(c) (drugs) a 1,000 tablet shipment of Ecstasy.

2004

Microgram Bulletin XXXVII:1 11: The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in Vancouver, British Columbia, has noted an increase in the supply of seized MDMA, with 1,000-tablet shipments, known as ‘boat’ shipments, the most common.

(a) a cannabis cigarette.

1998		(con. 1986) G. Pelecanos Sweet Forever 274: ‘Gimme some of that boat, man.’ Ray handed Monroe a lit joint.
2005		A. Lovejoy Acid Alex 237: I looked outside and there were a couple of ouens smoking a boat.

(b) (also love boat) phencyclidine; a cigarette which has been dipped in phencyclidine.

1993		G. Pelecanos Nick’s Trip 76: I sell herb only [...] The Post calls this a drug market, but nobody’s selling crack, love boat, none of that shit.
1993		G.P. Pelecanos Nick’s Trip 231: ‘[T]hat boy was hard on the Boat. Had enough green in him to knock down a horse’.
2001		ONDCP Street Terms 4: Boat — PCP.
2005		G. Pelecanos Drama City 204: Eddie Davis, up on PCP [...] When he was smoking that boat, Eddie felt as if he had the strength of ten men.

(c) marijuana soaked in embalming fluid and smoked.

2007

B. Coleman Check the Technique 347: ‘In our ’hood, heads used to smoke PCP and what we called ‘boat,’ which was marijuana laced with embalming fluid’.