destroyer
Americannoun
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a person or thing that destroys.
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a fast, relatively small, warship armed mainly with 5-inch (13-centimeter) guns.
noun
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a small fast lightly armoured but heavily armed warship
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a person or thing that destroys
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of destroyer
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English destroiere (compare Old French destruiere ); see destroy, -er 1
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Vocabulary lists containing destroyer
Example Sentences
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According to U.S. authorities, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer requires the equivalent of 2.3 tonnes of rare earth elements.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 17, 2026
Plans to replace ageing destroyer warships will be scrapped in favour of at least six new modern "hybrid" vessels equipped to deploy drones in the UK's upcoming defence plan.
From BBC ● Jun. 28, 2026
This motley pile, big enough to man a destroyer, is working together to literally support their sister’s audacious rise.
From Slate ● Jun. 24, 2026
Britain said in May it was sending a destroyer to the region, and Italy has made two minehunters available.
From Barron's ● Jun. 16, 2026
Navy destroyer and two coast guard cutters had taken up positions among the usual flotilla of yachts, sailboats, launches, dinghies, and canoes assembling near the finish line.
From "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics" by Daniel James Brown
Chinese destroyers sailing past those bases today could, in war, be tasked with striking and destroying them, said Koh.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 20, 2026
That has dropped to seven frigates and six destroyers.
From BBC ● Jun. 11, 2026
And I look at those ships, they came with the destroyers alongside of them, and man.
From Slate ● Jun. 11, 2026
The troops are requisitioned, the destroyers in place, the full moon just right, the secrecy of the invasion delicate.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 29, 2026
Almost immediately DDT was hailed as a means of stamping out insect- borne disease and winning the farmers’ war against crop destroyers overnight.
From "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
