a kind of barge used chiefly on the canals of Venice, where gondolas supply the place of carriages. The gondola is flat-bottomed, very long and narrow (averaging about 30 feet by 4), and its two sharply-pointed extremities are curved upwards to the full height of a man. It is also provided with a small chamber placed near its centre, and elevated to a convenient height above the line of the gunwale. It is propelled by oars or a pole, by the gondolier, who stands at the stern. The word gondola is derived by Du Cange from the modern Greek κονδύλα, a bark or little ship; Lancelot again deduces it from γόνδολη, a term in Athenaeus for a sort of vase.

The gondoliers of Venice were formerly an interesting part of the population, and were noted for the practice of whiling away time by singing alternately stanzas of poems, particularly of Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, though with great changes from the original; but this custom has become almost entirely obsolete.