Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A motorboat designed so that the prow and much of the hull lift out of the water and skim the surface at high speeds.
  • noun A horizontal rudder on a submarine.
  • intransitive verb To drive or ride in a hydroplane.
  • intransitive verb To skim along on the surface of the water.
  • intransitive verb To be or go out of control by skimming along the surface of a wet road. Used of a motor vehicle.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A name given by its inventor to the horizontal side-submerging rudder of the Lake type of submarine boat. There are two of these horizontal rudders on each side of the boat manipulated in unison; when they are inclined forward and downward they cause the boat to be submerged bodily instead of having a diving motion.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A plane, or any of a number of planes, projecting from the hull of a submarine boat, which by being elevated or depressed cause the boat, when going ahead, to sink or rise, after the manner of an aëroplane.
  • noun A projecting plane or fin on a hydroplane{3} to lift the moving boat on top of the water; also, a gliding boat.
  • noun a powered surface boat fitted with planes (hydroplanes{2}) projecting below the hull, designed to lift the boat, when moving rapidly, so that the hull itself is lifted out of the water and the boat is supported by the hydrodynamic forces of the water on the hydroplanes{2}, thus permitting higher speeds; formerly called a gliding boat.
  • intransitive verb Of a boat, to move through water while supported by hydroplanes{3} (see hydroplane{3}, above).
  • intransitive verb to move through a body of water supported by the hydrodynamic forces on a surface, similar in principle to a hydroplane{3}; -- said, e. .g, of automobiles skidding on a shallow patch of water on a road when moving at high speed, thus causing the tires to lose contact with the road surface.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb To skim the surface of a body of water while moving at high speed.
  • noun nautical : A specific type of motorboat used exclusively for racing.
  • noun A hydrofoil
  • noun A seaplane
  • noun The wing of a submarine, used to help control depth.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb glide on the water in a hydroplane
  • noun a speedboat that is equipped with winglike structures that lift it so that it skims the water at high speeds
  • noun an airplane that can land on or take off from water

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From hydro- "water" + plane

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