Also 8 bomb-boat. [app. f. BUM sb.1 + BOAT. (Cf. bumbay ‘a quagmire from stagnating water, dung, etc., such as is often seen in farm-yards’ Suffolk Words from Cullum, Hist. Hawsted, 1815; also Ray, S. & E. C. Words.)]
† 1. A scavenger’s boat, employed to remove ‘filth’ from ships lying in the Thames, as prescribed by the Trinity House Bye Laws of 1685. (These ‘dirt-boats’ used also to bring vegetables, etc., for sale on board the ships, whence sense 2.)
1671. Proclam. Chas. II., 6 April. Whereas several Dirt-Boats, and Bum-Boats … under pretence of Fetching Dirt, and Furnishing necessary Provisions on Board such Ships as are in the River, do commit divers Thefts and Robberies.
1685. By-Laws Trinity House, No. 6. Dirtboats, otherwise called Bumboats.
2. ‘A boat employed to carry provisions, vegetables, and small merchandise for sale to ships, either in port or lying at a distance from the shore. Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk.
1769. Falconer, Dict. Marine (1784), Bum-boat, a small boat used to sell vegetables, &c. to ships lying at a distance from the shore.
1833. Marryat, P. Simple (1863), 407. All the bumboats were very anxious to supply the ship.
1863. Cornh. Mag., Feb. Life Man-of-War, 187. The bumboat has come alongside by this time, with oranges and grapes, loaf-bread (nauticé, soft tack), herrings, and similar dainties.
3. attrib., as bumboat act, man, people, woman.
1714. Lond. Gaz., No. 5245/3. John Daniel, an Alehouse-keeper and Bomb-boat Man at Woolwich.
1820. Broderip & Bingham, Rep., I. 433. The vessel … was seized … under the Bum-boat act (2 Geo. III. c. 28).
1835. Marryat, Jac. Faithf., xxxvii. We purchased some sheets of paper from the bumboat people.
1884. Littell’s Living Age, 700. Fruits from … the bumboat-woman at a seaport.
Hence Bumboating vbl. sb.
1841. Marryat, Poacher, xxxvii. It was only bumboating on a large scale.
