A steamboat is a boat driven by a steam engine — you burn coal or wood, the fire boils water, the steam pushes the engine, and the engine turns the wheels or the propeller. Steamboats were the fast, modern transport of the nineteenth century, especially on rivers and along coasts. The most famous ones are the big American paddle steamers on the Mississippi River, with a huge wheel turning at the back. Because that time has passed, the word now feels historical. If you say steamboat, people picture the past: Mark Twain, old photographs, tall chimneys, a whistle. Modern boats have diesel engines, so almost the only steamboats left today are tourist boats kept running because they are beautiful. There is a size difference worth knowing. A steamboat is usually a river or coastal boat. A big ocean-going one is normally called a steamship, or a steamer. In practice people are loose about this, and 'steamer' covers both. One thing that will surprise you: in Singapore and Malaysia, 'steamboat' means hot pot — the meal where you cook thin meat and vegetables yourself in a pot of boiling soup at the table. That is the everyday meaning there, nothing to do with boats at all. Taiwanese students meeting Singaporean friends run into this often. So if someone invites you to steamboat, they probably mean dinner, not a river trip.