fire ship
a vessel loaded with combustibles and explosives, ignited, and set adrift to destroy an enemy's ships or constructions.
Origin of fire ship
1Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use fire ship in a sentence
Fire-ships were, indeed, of far earlier date than the days of Richard the First.
How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves | W.H.G. KingstonThus we see that the Tyrians invented and successfully employed fire-ships before the Christian era.
How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves | W.H.G. KingstonThe combined fleets amounted to 56 ships only, while the French possessed 78 men-of-war and 22 fire-ships.
How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves | W.H.G. KingstonOn most occasions the fire-ships, being generally old vessels fit for no other purpose, were the chief sufferers.
How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves | W.H.G. KingstonAs an example of the danger those on board fire-ships ran, a fearful accident which happened to one of them must be mentioned.
How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves | W.H.G. Kingston
British Dictionary definitions for fire ship
a vessel loaded with explosives and used, esp formerly, as a bomb by igniting it and directing it to drift among an enemy's warships
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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