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 (AU)

  (file)

Noun

boatload (plural boatloads)

1. Cargo or passengers that fill a boat.

   a boatload of illegal immigrants

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, Rob Pegoraro, "Waiting for the Winner of a High-Definition High Noon", The Washington Post, December 10 [1]

     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 (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–present.

Anagrams

• Badolato