Word of the Day

: March 3, 2017

cabotage

noun KAB-uh-tahzh

What It Means

1 : trade or transport in coastal waters or airspace or between two points within a country

2 : the right to engage in coastal trade or transport

cabotage in Context

"If Britain were granted cabotage, B.A.'s planes would be able to operate like a domestic carrier—to hop about the United States, picking up and discharging passengers, and carrying many of them to and from Britain." — John Newhouse, The New Yorker, 5 Aug. 1991

"The decision to allow cabotage could see a foreign carrier … fly domestic passengers between the Queensland resort and another destination north of the tropic." — Steve Creedy, The Australian, 29 May 2015

Did You Know?

Coastlines were once so important to the French that they came up with a verb to name the act of sailing along a coast: caboter. That verb gave rise to the French noun cabotage, which named trade or transport along a coast. In the 16th century, the French legally limited their lucrative coastal trade, declaring that only French ships could trade in French ports. They called the right to conduct such trading cabotage too. Other nations soon embraced both the concept of trade restrictions and the French name for trading rights, and expanded the idea to inland trade as well.