Dhow

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /daʊ/

Definitions

1. A traditional sailing craft commonly utilized for trade and fishing, especially in the waters of the Arabian Peninsula and East Africa
2. A distinctive type of wooden vessel characterized by its use of triangular sails and designed for navigating coastal and inland waterways
3. A wooden ship often featuring a lateen sail, historically used for merchant trade and fishing along the coasts of the Arabian Gulf and Indian Ocean

Etymology: The dhow is one of the few English nautical words that came straight from Arabic, where "dāw" names a traditional sailing vessel of the western Indian Ocean. English speakers encountered the craft through the trade networks linking the Arabian Peninsula, the Persian Gulf, the Indian coast and East Africa, and the word followed those routes into the language. The vessel itself is closely tied to that trade. Its lateen (triangular) sail and hull built without metal fastenings were suited to the seasonal monsoon winds, which carried these boats between ports for centuries. Because the word was taken from a living regional language rather than from Latin or Greek, it stands apart from most of the sea vocabulary English inherited or borrowed through European languages.