boatload

English

Etymology

From boat +‎ load. Notionally, because the commodity in question might have constituted the entire load of a cargo ship or boat.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈbəʊtˌləʊd/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈboʊtˌloʊd/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Noun

boatload (plural boatloads)

1. Cargo or passengers that fill a boat.

   a boatload of ferry passengers

   • 1869, Alfred Russel Wallace, The Malay Archipelago: The Land of the Orang-utan, and the Bird of Paradise. A Narrative of Travel, with Studies of Man and Nature., volume II, London: Macmillan and Co., pages 173 and 229:

     Just then two boats[-]load of natives appeared, and our owner having agreed with them to tow us into harbour, they tried to do so, assisted by our own boat, but could make no way. […] Those who live on the coast have plenty of fish; but when inland, as we are here, they only go to the sea occasionally, and then bring home cockles and other shell-fish by the boatload.

2. (slang) A large quantity.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:lot

   He showed up an hour later with a whole boatload of hamburgers, chips, cookies, and assorted other munchies, not to mention sodas and beer, and we all fell in and stuffed ourselves silly.

   • 2006 December 10, Rob Pegoraro, “Waiting for the Winner of a High-Definition High Noon”, in The Washington Post:

     What's a fair price to pay for video perfection, or even something that looks a lot like it? In the case of high-definition movie discs, the answer may not just be "a boatload of money," but having to keep two incompatible players under the TV set.

Related terms

• containerload

Translations

A large quantity.

• Finnish: repullinen (fi) (literally “backpackful”)
• German: Bootsladung f, (idiomatic) Batzen (de) m
• Portuguese: variedade (pt), carregamento (pt)
• Swedish: båtlass (sv)
• Turkish: gemi yükü, (military) tekne yükü

References

• “boatload”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Anagrams

• Badolato