boaty mcboatface
/ˈboʊti mɪkˈboʊtfeɪs/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 0.87 in modern English
31
Scrabble Score
15
Letters
3
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
name
An autonomous underwater vehicle launched in 2017, currently in service with the British Antarctic Survey to study the polar oceans.
verb
To hijack or troll (a vote, especially one held online; or an organization conducting such a vote), by supporting a joke option.
Humorous; Transitive verb
Example Sentences
- "I am proud to say that the royal Arctic survey ship will be named after David Attenborough. There was strong support for Boaty McBoatface. I think the submarine on the boat will be named Boaty McBoatface but, quite rightly, Attenborough will take top billing."
- "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."
- "With sheets of water pouring from its body, the UK's most famous robot – Boaty McBoatface – was winched up after 55 days at sea. […] Boaty has completed a more-than-2,000km scientific odyssey from Iceland that could change what we know about the pace of climate change. It was hunting for marine snow – "poo, basically" in the words of one researcher. This refers to tiny particles that sink to the ocena floor, storing huge amounts of carbon."
- "[Donald] Trump is Boaty McBoatfacing the presidential election."
- "On this week's episode, Sonny Bunch (The Bulwark), Alyssa Rosenberg (The Washington Post), and Peter Suderman (Reason) ask if the Oscars made a big mistake by allowing a potential Boaty McBoatfacing situation by opening up voting to the Twitter-based masses."
- "The Oscars got Boaty McBoatfaced and that's like, the sixth worst headline of the night, that's how bad the show was."
Etymology
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.
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈboʊti mɪkˈboʊtfeɪs/
- British English: /ˈbəʊti məkˈbəʊtfeɪs/