a small canoe consisting of a light frame made watertight with animal skins; used by Eskimos
"The Inuit hunter paddled his traditional kayak across the frozen sea to hunt seals."
A type of small boat, covered over by a surface deck, powered by the occupant or occupants using a double-bladed paddle in a sitting position, from a hole in the surface deck
"The paddler sat inside the kayak and used their double-bladed paddle to propel the small boat across the lake."
In plain English: A kayak is a small, narrow boat that you sit inside and paddle with a double-bladed oar on calm water.
"We rented a kayak to explore the calm lake on our summer vacation."
Usage: The verb form is often misspelled as "cayak" due to phonetic similarity with other watercraft terms like canoe. When referring to the sport itself rather than just the boat, it is common to say "kayaking."
To use a kayak, to travel or race in a kayak.
"They paddled hard to kayak across the frozen lake before sunset."
In plain English: To kayak means to travel by paddling a small boat on water.
"We paddled out to rent and kayak across the calm lake on a sunny afternoon."
The word kayak comes from the Inuktitut language, where it originally meant "hunter's boat." It is related to similar words in Greenlandic and Yup'ik that share the same root meaning.