AY Honors/Rowing/Answer Key

The term skiff is applied to various river craft, but a skiff is typically a small flat-bottomed open boat with a pointed bow and square stern. Although originally used mainly by fishermen, they are today primarily leisure craft. They usually hold either one person, or more commonly, three (two scullers and a cox). Very rarely are they propelled other than by sculls.

The word has a complicated etymology: it comes from the Middle English skif, which derives from the Old French esquif, which in turn derives from the Old Italian schifo, which is itself of Germanic origin. The word is related to ship.