dugout canoe
1
5.3
- noun
- /ˈdʌɡaʊt kəˈnu/
:
canoa de tronco
- The first type of boat from which U.S. fishermen tonged oysters was the dugout canoe (Fig. 10); the large ones carried about 40 bushels.
- make a dugout canoe
- use dugout canoes
Examples
-
The dugout canoes were used in some areas into the early 1900s.
Academic text (1996) -
During the dry season, smaller villages are accessible only on foot or by motorized dugout canoes, which transport villagers to and from weekly regional markets.
Academic text (2004) -
And in the morning we can chop down a big tree... and make a dugout canoe.
-
When they did, from 200 to 300 men and boys in dugout canoes went after the shrimp with the nets.
Academic text (1996) -
Dugout canoes are made of soft, lightweight wood, and they are very buoyant.
Academic text (1996) -
We hid our dugout canoe in the thicket and headed west, carrying our baskets and net.
Fiction book (1998) -
Historical accounts report that the Maya carved large dugout canoes from mahogany and other hardwoods, capable of carrying forty or fifty people.
Academic text (1991) -
Anna's dugout canoe sliced a quiet path through the glasslike surface of the river.
-
We hid our dugout canoe in the thicket and headed west, carrying our baskets and net.
-
And in the morning we can chop down a big tree... and make a dugout canoe.
Synonyms
1
5.6
A small boat made by hollowing out a large log
1
9.9
A long narrow wooden boat carved from one tree trunk
1
6.7
A narrow canoe with one or more side floats for balance in rough water
1
7.2
A light boat made from birch tree bark and used by Native people in North America
A light boat made by covering a wooden frame with birch bark
A light canoe made by stretching birch bark over a wooden frame
How Big
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase combines 'dugout' (a boat hollowed from a single log) with 'canoe' (a narrow, paddled boat), so the overall meaning—a canoe made by hollowing out a large log—is directly and compositionally derivable from its parts. This noun+noun compounding is semantically transparent and readily interpretable by a B1 learner who knows the constituent words.
Etymology
Dugout canoe comes from how people make the boat: they take a big tree log and dig or carve the inside out to make a hollow boat, so the word dugout literally means 'dug out' and canoe means a small boat. That's why dugout canoe means 'a canoe made from a large log that has been hollowed out and shaped'.