Definition of "yacht"

yacht

/jɒt/

noun
plural yachts
1. A slick and light ship for making pleasure trips or racing on water, having sails but often motor-powered. At times used as a residence offshore on a dock.
  Quotations
  The skipper Mr. Cooke had hired at Far Harbor was a God-fearing man with a luke warm interest in his new billet and employer, and had only been prevailed upon to take charge of the yacht after the offer of an emolument equal to half a year's sea pay of an ensign in the navy.
  1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter X, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd.
2. Any vessel used for private, noncommercial purposes.
  Quotations
  “I don’t mean all of your friends—only a small proportion—which, however, connects your circle with that deadly, idle, brainless bunch—the insolent chatterers at the opera, […], the chlorotic squatters on huge yachts, […], the neurotic victims of mental cirrhosis, the jewelled animals whose moral code is the code of the barnyard—!"
  1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter VI, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company
verb
third-person singular simple present yachts, present participle yachting, simple past and past participle yachted
1. (intransitive) To sail, voyage, or race in a yacht.