[f. FERRY sb. + BOAT.] A boat used for conveying passengers, etc., across a ferry.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 156/2. Feryboot, portemia.
1458. Nottingham Rec., II. 220. De vs. viijd. receptis de proficuis de ferybotes de tempore.
1580. Baret, Alv., B. 895. A ferry boate to cary ouer horses.
1644. Evelyn, Mem. (1819), I. 123. The next excursion was over the Tiber, which I crossed in a ferry-boate, to see the Palazzo di Chigi.
1725. De Foe, Voy. round World (1840), 321–2. The carpenters, finding how dangerous such great unwieldy rafts would be, resolved to set to it, and build one large float with sides to it, like a punt or ferry boat.
1811. Wellington, in Gurw., Desp., VII. 418. I shall pay the proprietor of the ferry boats any reasonable sum for the time.
1858. W. Ellis, Visits Madagascar, viii. 215. A number of men were engaged in shaping the trunk of a tree into a windlass for the large ferry-boat.
