How to Use boatman in a Sentence

boatman

noun
  • First liberty got drunk as a Lord with Shults & two of small boatmen.
    — Phoebe Wall Howard, Detroit Free Press, 28 May 2018
  • Tereza is initially concerned as the boatman starts burning up with fever.
    — David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter, 3 Sep. 2019
  • With mounting frustration, and sweat pouring down his face, the boatman tugged and pulled the rope.
    — Joshua Hammer, Smithsonian Magazine, 24 June 2024
  • Ancona is one of the few boatmen who have a license to carry tourists into the reserve.
    — Simon Willis, Travel + Leisure, 5 Oct. 2025
  • To get here, fly into the airport on Beef Island and a boatman will pick you up.
    — Condé Nast, Condé Nast Traveler, 25 Feb. 2026
  • Hurriedly, the boatman took all people on board to escape the firing.
    — Rebecca Wright, CNN, 13 Sep. 2017
  • Well, not me personally, but my boatman, the person who was rowing my boat was using the oars.
    — Condé Nast Traveler, 30 Nov. 2023
  • When the tide was low, some boatmen were stopping a few hundred meters (yards) short and asking people to wade in the rest of the way.
    — Muneeza Naqvi, The Seattle Times, 5 Sep. 2017
  • On Tuesday it was announced that Canico’s body had been found by a boatman about half a mile from the concert site.
    — Reuters, The Mercury News, 2 Aug. 2019
  • Someone else reports having seen an open leishmaniasis sore on one of the boatmen.
    — Richard Conniff, Smithsonian, 2 May 2017
  • To professional boatmen, craft such as the Recreation were a nuisance.
    — John Kelly, Washington Post, 29 Aug. 2017
  • Cove, 2025, the right panel of a triptych, appears at first to be a pastoral scene of boatmen on a tropical shore.
    — James Meyer, Artforum, 1 Jan. 2026
  • It was passed down for generations by boatmen through their oral history, according to a local media report.
    — Chris Lau, CNN, 22 June 2023
  • The 65-year-old boatman has been transporting locals, goods and livestock across the river for about a quarter century.
    — Washington Post, 3 Dec. 2019
  • Gregorarz worked on several scenes, including one between Roulin and a boatman.
    — Julie Hinds, Detroit Free Press, 12 Oct. 2017
  • Jess is acting this way over a man who has no interest in dating her and only began a boatman with her after Natalya left … girl, pick yourself up!
    — Jihane Bousfiha, Vulture, 22 Jan. 2024
  • In the movie, two boatmen drinking in a tavern look out the window and see a mother and daughter on a swing, then proceed to seduce them by taking them for a ride downriver.
    — Thomas Hine, Philly.com, 3 May 2018
  • The image of the boasting boatman became a literary trope, and one boatman emerged as a particular source of fascination.
    — Boyce Upholt, Smithsonian Magazine, 11 June 2024
  • Fra Ezio has played the role of Charon, the boatman on the mythic River Styx, ferrying souls from one threshold to another.
    — Washington Post, 30 Dec. 2020
  • One of the boatmen accused of misconduct was not fired until last summer, 19 months after the inspector general's report.
    — Alaska Dispatch News, 14 Oct. 2017
  • Unfortunately, morning on the river starts before sunrise, when the boatmen fire up the outboards and the hornbills start squawking and the rustle of leaves hints at the primates feeding in the canopy.
    — Paul Brady, Condé Nast Traveler, 16 Nov. 2018
  • An authentic boatman who built his own puparìn, a graceful, gondola-like rowing boat that makes Brunetti swoon, Casati loves every watery inch of his domain.
    — Marilyn Stasio, New York Times, 30 Mar. 2017
  • Volunteer lifeguards and local boatmen offer surf lessons for newer riders or even experienced wave riders who want to better understand the lay of the underwater land.
    — Noah Lederman, Condé Nast Traveler, 7 Oct. 2024
  • The outgoing lighthouse keepers are Jillian Meeker and Che Rogers—the former a skilled cook, the latter a talented boatman who’s sailed the world over.
    — Maude Campbell, Popular Mechanics, 8 Jan. 2019
  • What’s more, actions such as the disproportionate use of force through missiles launched at poor boatmen in the Caribbean violate international human rights treaties.
    — Gustavo Petro, Time, 9 Nov. 2025
  • Antônio Viana, a boatman who transports people across the Acre River, confronts declining water levels in July.
    — John Muyskens, Washington Post, 18 Nov. 2022
  • The boatman circled cautiously, then winced when Wilson, the jujitsu champion, suddenly launched an aerial drone and banged on the boat’s gunwale to get the animals’ attention.
    — Joshua Hammer, Smithsonian Magazine, 24 June 2024
  • Railroad workers - joined now by miners, iron workers and boatmen from the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal - hid under bridges or behind blind curves, emerging to ambush trains with stones or block their tracks with debris.
    — Fredrick Kunkle, chicagotribune.com, 3 Sep. 2017
  • Ideal would be on a houseboat in Kerala, motoring down the backwaters with my own cook and boatman and sipping toddy; or else under an umbrella at some warm beach while digitally disconnected.
    — New York Times, 27 Apr. 2023
  • Set in a conservative fishing village in Kuala Terengganu, the film follows a boatman struggling with addiction and a batik artisan whose lives intersect after an unplanned pregnancy.
    — Naman Ramachandran, Variety, 9 June 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'boatman.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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