[f. BOAT sb. and v.]
† 1. Boats, in a collective sense. Cf. shipping. Obs.
1610. J. Melvill, Diary (1842), 707. Taking the first convenient boiteing com by watter to Westminster. Ibid., 711. We tuik boitting the 2 of July.
2. The action of going by boat, or of rowing; now esp. rowing as an amusement.
1788. A. Falconbridge, Slave Tr. Afr., 18. Another mode of procuring slaves … by what they term boating.… The sailors … go in boats up the rivers, seeking for negroes.
1856. Kane, Arct. Expl., I. ix. 92. We came to the end of our boating.
1874. Blackie, Self-Cult., 45. Boating … is a manly and characteristically British exercise.
b. attrib.
1835. Marryat, Olla Podr., v. We were on a boating expedition.
1881. W. E. Norris, Matrimony, I. 290. Had not been able to change his boating flannels.
† 3. A punishment in ancient Persia, in which the offender was tied down in a boat, and left to perish, or be eaten by vermin.
1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp.
