pontoon
n. countablen. a flat, floating platform used to carry people or things across water. It can also be a long, flat boat used to carry vehicles or heavy equipment.
n. a flat, floating platform or a long, flat-bottomed boat used for transporting vehicles or heavy cargo across water. Often used in military or industrial contexts for bridging or ferrying.
The soldiers used a pontoon to cross the river.
The construction crew built a temporary bridge using several large pontoons to reach the island.
During the amphibious assault, the naval forces deployed a series of heavy-duty pontoons to create a stable landing platform for the armored vehicles.
Borrowed from Middle French ponton, from Old French ponton, from Latin pontō, pontōnem (“ferryboat”), from pōns (“bridge”).
Probably from vingt-un, an obsolete variant of vingt-et-un (“twenty-one”), from French.