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Glite Dictionary
🚤 Overlapping planks 🪚 Boat building style
lapstrake

lapstrake

9.9
A way of building boats using overlapping planks
  • noun
  • Specialized
translation icon : construcción superpuesta
  • lapstrake boats

Examples

  • Small lapstrake boats, twenty feet long and carrying extra cargo, were tied to the sterns and towed behind.

    Fiction book (2002)

  • The shipwright expertly crafted a beautiful lapstrake boat that would glide smoothly through the water.

  • During the tour, we learned that lapstrake construction gives boats greater strength and flexibility.

  • A classic design feature of many fishing vessels is their lapstrake hull, made of overlapping wooden planks.

Surface Forms

lapstrake singular
lapstrakes plural

Morphology

lapstrake = lap + strake (semi-transparent) = lap + strake

The noun denotes a lap + strake construction or an overlapping plank; the composition is literal but specialized nautical knowledge is required to fully understand.

Etymology

Lapstrake as a noun is named from lap ('to overlap') and strake ('a strip of planking'), which makes an easy picture: each plank 'laps' over the one below it like shingles. So a lapstrake is either the overlapping-plank method or a plank that overlaps another, giving boats extra strength and flexibility.