pontoon

pontoon

¹

Nautical a float, often inflatable, for raising a vessel in the water

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pontoon

²

1. a gambling game in which players try to obtain card combinations worth 21 points

2. (in this game) the combination of an ace with a ten or court card when dealt to a player as his first two cards

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

pontoon

[pän′tün]

(aerospace engineering)

A float on an airplane.

(naval architecture)

A low, flat-bottomed ship, similar to a barge, carrying cranes, capstans, and other machinery used to lift weights, to lean ships on their sides for repairs, and to perform other such operation.

A wooden flat-bottomed boat or other float, used particularly to make temporary bridges.

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Pontoon

 

a very simple vessel without its own means of propulsion, usually with perpendicular sides and a flat bottom, with or without a deck. The pontoon may have a contoured bow and stern lines to decrease resistance to a current.

By connecting pontoons by means of special coupling devices, pack bridges and the floating supports of raft bridges and ferries are formed. Pontoons are the basic elements of the ferrybridge equipment of bridge trains. Floating docks on which cranes are mounted are also assembled with pontoons. They are used to hoist sunken vessels and to guide deep-draft ships along shallow channels. Pontoons were first used by the Dutch Army in the early 17th century. Other armies adopted them later. Modern pontoons may be made of metal (steel or light alloys), inflated rubberized materials, or reinforced concrete.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.