Phrase guide
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
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name
An autonomous underwater vehicle launched in 2017, currently in service with the British Antarctic Survey to study the polar oceans.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
verb
To hijack or troll (a vote, especially one held online; or an organization conducting such a vote), by supporting a joke option.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: humorous, neologism, transitive
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: McBoatface
Antonyms: none provided
History
The proper noun was coined by the British BBC Radio Jersey presenter James Hand in 2016 as a humorous response to a public online poll held by the British government to name a new polar research ship. Despite the fact that “Boaty McBoatface” won decisively, receiving 33% of the overall vote (over three times as many as the second most favoured option), the organizers of the poll ultimately named the ship after British broadcaster and naturalist Sir David Attenborough. The name was instead given to one of the autonomous underwater vehicles (pictured) carried aboard the ship. The noun may be analyzed as boat + -y (diminutive suffix) + Mc- (patronymic commonly used to form Irish and Scottish names) + boat + face, and was possibly modelled after “Hooty McOwlface”, a name given to an adopted owl which went viral on the Internet in 2012. The verb is derived from the noun.
Across languages
1 source translations are retained for this English entry.
