catamaran

From Tamil கட்டுமரம் (kaṭṭumaram), from கட்டு (kaṭṭu, “to tie”) +‎ மரம் (maram, “tree, wood”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˌkæ.tə.məˈɹæn/, /ˈkæ.tə.məˌɹæn/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (Canada, US) IPA^(key): /ˈkæ.tə.məˌɹæn/, /ˌkæ.tə.məˈɹæn/

catamaran (plural catamarans)

1. A twin-hulled ship or boat.
   • 1838, [Letitia Elizabeth] Landon (indicated as editor), chapter XV, in Duty and Inclination: […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 218:

     Swift over the seas the vessel drives; Madras appears in sight. The first object catching the eye, upon the anchor being cast, was an Indian upon his catamaran, who, making a sudden motion, sprung to the side of the ship, grappled there for a moment, and the next was on the deck.

2. (colloquial, rare, obsolete) A quarrelsome woman; a scold.
   • 1889, William Makepeace Thackeray, Hobson's Choice:

     She meddles with my prescriptions for your wife; she doctors the infant in private: you'll never have a quiet house or a quiet wife as long as that old Catamaran is here.

3. (obsolete) A raft of three pieces of wood lashed together, the middle piece being longer than the others, and serving as a keel on which the rower squats while paddling.
   • 1808–10, William Hickey, Memoirs of a Georgian Rake, Folio Society 1995, p. 90:

     Three or four strange-looking things now came close to our boat, which I understood were called ‘catamarans’, consisting of nothing more than two or three large trees, the trunk part only strongly lashed together, upon which sat two men nearly in a state of nature […] .

4. (obsolete) An old kind of fireship.

• (twin-hulled ship or boat): twinhull, cat

• (twin-hulled ship or boat): multihull

• (twin-hulled ship or boat): AC45, AC72

• monohull
• outrigger canoe

• trimaran

• → Catalan: catamarà
• → French: catamaran
  • → Romanian: catamaran
• → Portuguese: catamarã
• → Spanish: catamarán
• → Welsh: catamarán

Borrowed from English catamaran, from Tamil கட்டுமரம் (kaṭṭumaram).

• IPA^(key): /ka.ta.ma.ʁɑ̃/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Audio (Switzerland):

  (file)

• Homophone: catamarans

catamaran m (plural catamarans)

1. catamaran, a twinhulled ship or boat

• → Romanian: catamaran

• “catamaran”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Borrowed from English catamaran, from Tamil.

catamaran m (plural catamarans)

1. (Jersey) catamaran

Borrowed from French catamaran, from English catamaran, from Tamil கட்டுமரம் (kaṭṭumaram).

catamaran n (plural catamarane)

1. catamaran