lifeboat

From life +‎ boat.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈlaɪfˌbəʊt/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈlaɪfˌboʊt/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

lifeboat (plural lifeboats)

1. (nautical) A boat especially designed for saving the lives of shipwrecked people or people in distress at sea (either launched from the shore with a crew, or else carried on board a larger ship).
   • 1971, Alice Cooper, Glen Buxton, Michael Bruce, Dennis Dunaway, Neal Smith, “Halo of Flies”, in Killer, performed by Alice Cooper:

     I've got a watch that turns into a lifeboat

   • 1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 322, about Port Eynon:

     In a corner of the churchyard, where old headstones mark the graves of many mariners, is a striking white statue of a lifeboatman, erected as a memorial to three members of the local lifeboat crew who lost their lives in 1916 while trying to reach a ship in distress.

2. (science fiction) An emergency vehicle carried aboard a spaceship.

• quarter boat, rowboat, raft

lifeboat (third-person singular simple present lifeboats, present participle lifeboating, simple past and past participle lifeboated)

1. To rescue; to carry to safety