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tugboat

[ tuhg-boht ]

noun

  1. a small, powerful boat for towing or pushing ships, barges, etc.


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Word History and Origins

Origin of tugboat1

An Americanism dating back to 1820–30; tug + boat
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Example Sentences

They blocked civilians from boarding tugboats by forming a blockade around the walls of the Malecón in the capital.

Forty-four of the Jones Act fleet’s 57 tankers are sitting along the Gulf Coast or Eastern Seaboard, in addition to tugboats and barges.

Woronowicz has been working on boats his whole life as a merchant mariner — on tugboats and cruise ships, now as a third mate on a Columbia University ocean research vessel.

Authorities worked day and night, dredging and using tugboats to dig and pull the ship away from the banks.

The positions of the Ever Given container ship and the tugboats are based on satellite imagery by Maxar, Airbus Space and Planet, as well as location data from VesselFinder.

A tugboat improbably sits high on the bank, obscured by tall grass, a broken oil rig hangs over the water nearby.

After airstrikes began, Libyan armed men seized an Italian tugboat in Tripoli used to service the coastal oil platforms.

A half-mile or more distant from them a big, ocean-going tugboat was passing down the bay, without a tow and under full steam.

I did not give up the venture there, however, but directed the captain of the tugboat to make directly for the island.

A little abaft her beam a tugboat was blowing one long and two short, indicating her tow.

It was on the tip of Mayo's tongue to argue the matter with the tugboat man, but he took second thought and shut his mouth.

So the young man accepted Captain Dodge's invitation and climbed to the tugboat's pilot-house.

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