Boaty McBoatface
nameEtymology
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.
Definitions
An autonomous underwater vehicle launched in 2017, currently in service with the British…
An autonomous underwater vehicle launched in 2017, currently in service with the British Antarctic Survey to study the polar oceans.
- The UK's favourite new yellow submarine, Boaty McBoatface, is in training for grand challenge. Scientists plan to send the long-range autonomous vehicle under the sea-ice of the Arctic – from one side of the ocean basin to the other.
To hijack or troll (a vote, especially one held online
To hijack or troll (a vote, especially one held online; or an organization conducting such a vote), by supporting a joke option.
- [Donald] Trump is Boaty McBoatfacing the presidential election.
- The Oscars got Boaty McBoatfaced and that's like, the sixth worst headline of the night, that's how bad the show was.
The neighborhood
Vish — recursive loop
No curated loop yet for Boaty McBoatface. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.
sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA