A small wooden sailing vessel used in India and SE Asia.
Example sentencesExamples
In the Maldives, the main vessel tends to be used as a hotel boat, with a smaller dhoni, like the ones used by the land-based dive centres, used for the actual diving.
All boat dives in the Maldives are drift dives - the dhoni follows the current and picks you up where you ascend.
Later, it's a stroll along the beach to the pier, from where a dhoni collects us for sunset fishing - we catch nothing but a great view.
We were safely back aboard the dhoni and heading for our mothership, Sea Spirit.
On arrival we're met by a dhoni that takes us the last few hundred yards to our island.
Origin
From Telugu doni; compare with Persian dōnī 'yacht'.