banana boat
- noun
- /bəˈnænə boʊt/
:
barco de plátano
- The banana boat docked at the harbor, ready to unload its cargo of fresh bananas.
Examples
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Farmers in the tropics rely on the banana boat to transport their harvest to markets around the world.
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After a long journey, the banana boat finally arrived with a shipment of ripe fruit for the supermarket.
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And the banana boat is here.
Synonyms
26
3.0
A large ship that carries goods between ports
4
3.4
A ship that carries goods, often in containers
Surface Forms
Morphology
banana + boat
The meaning is directly and literally built from 'banana' (invoking the characteristic curved, elongated shape) and 'boat' (a small vessel): a B1 learner who knows both words can infer a boat shaped like a banana used for recreation. This noun–noun compounding is a transparent, descriptive pattern common across languages, so the sense is predictable without prior exposure.
Etymology
The noun banana boat first named ships that carried large loads of banana fruit from tropical islands to markets, and because the cargo and the boat belonged together people called them 'banana boats', meaning 'a ship for transporting bananas'.