gondola means A small long, narrow boat with a high prow and stern, propelled with a single oar, especially in Venice. Lexicurio rates it Distinctive — a strength score of 64 out of 100.
Why this word is great
GONDOLA — [Noun] A slender, flat-bottomed boat with a distinctive asymmetrical design and curved prow, traditionally rowed by a standing gondolier through Venetian canals; also, the suspended compartment of a cable car or balloon. From Italian gondola, from Venetian góndoƚa, possibly from Byzantine Greek κοντοῦρα (kontoûra, "cutter, kind of ship"). Unlike a "canoe" (paddled forward-facing, utilitarian and open) or a "cable car" (mechanized, bound to rails), the gondola is an instrument of ceremony—black-lacquered and silent, built to glide sideways like a waterborne hearse. It is the soundless wake rippling past palazzo reflections, the gondolier’s oar catching the last amber light of dusk, the balloon’s wicker basket adrift above patchwork fields—a vessel forever between worlds, neither fully earthbound nor entirely free.
noun
- A small long, narrow boat with a high prow and stern, propelled with a single oar, especially in Venice.
- A hanging platform or car for transporting people or cargo.; An enclosed car attached to a cable mechanically lifted up the side of a mountain; an enclosed ski lift; a cable car.
- A hanging platform or car for transporting people or cargo.; The car or basket of a hot-air balloon, airship, zeppelin, etc.
- A hanging platform or car for transporting people or cargo.; The hanging cart in which a glass-cleaning worker stands to clean exterior glass on tall buildings.
- A hanging platform or car for transporting people or cargo.; That part of a transporter bridge that carries passengers, vehicles, along the length of the bridge span.
- A type of open railway car with low sides, used to carry heavy freight such as crushed rock or steel.“The railroad track paralleled the road, and along the track we saw lines of burned-out gondolas and freight cars which had been fired and destroyed during the war.”
verb
- To travel by gondola.