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• fleet
  fleet

  noun

  the largest organized unit of naval ships grouped for tactical or other purposes.
• Fleet
  Fleet

  noun

  a stream that formerly ran into the Thames between Ludgate Hill and Fleet Street and is now a covered sewer

fleet

¹ American  

[fleet] / flit /

noun

1. the largest organized unit of naval ships grouped for tactical or other purposes.

2. the largest organization of warships under the command of a single officer.

3. a number of naval vessels or vessels carrying armed crew members.

4. a large group of ships, airplanes, trucks, etc., operated by a single company or under the same ownership.

   He owns a fleet of cabs.

5. a large group of airplanes, automobiles, etc., moving or operating together.

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fleet ² American  

[fleet] / flit /

adjective

fleeter, fleetest

1. swift; rapid.

   to be fleet of foot;

   a fleet horse.

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verb (used without object)

• fleets,
  present (3rd person singular)
• fleeted,
  past participle,  past
• fleeting
  present participle

1. to move swiftly; fly.

2. Nautical. to change position; shift.

3. Archaic.

   1. to glide along like a stream.

   2. to fade; vanish.

4. Obsolete. to float; drift; swim.

verb (used with object)

• fleets,
  present (3rd person singular)
• fleeted,
  past participle,  past
• fleeting
  present participle

1. to cause (time) to pass lightly or swiftly.

   Synonyms:

   beguile, hasten, speed

2. Nautical.

   1. to move or change the position of.

   2. to separate the blocks of (a tackle).

   3. to lay (a rope) along a deck.

fleet ³ American  

[fleet] / flit /

noun

British Dialect.

1. an arm of the sea; inlet.

2. a creek; stream; watercourse.

3. the Fleet, a former prison in London, long used for debtors.

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fleet ¹ British  

/ fliːt /

adjective

1. rapid in movement; swift

2. poetic fleeting; transient

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verb

1. (intr) to move rapidly

2. archaic (intr) to fade away smoothly; glide

3. (tr) nautical

   1. to change the position of (a hawser)

   2. to pass (a messenger or lead) to a hawser from a winch for hauling in

   3. to spread apart (the blocks of a tackle)

4. obsolete (intr) to float or swim

5. obsolete (tr) to cause (time) to pass rapidly

fleet ² British  

/ fliːt /

noun

1. a number of warships organized as a tactical unit

2. all the warships of a nation

3. a number of aircraft, ships, buses, etc, operating together or under the same ownership

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Fleet ³ British  

/ fliːt /

noun

1. a stream that formerly ran into the Thames between Ludgate Hill and Fleet Street and is now a covered sewer

2. Also called: Fleet Prison.  (formerly) a London prison, esp used for holding debtors

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fleet ⁴ British  

/ fliːt /

noun

1. a small coastal inlet; creek

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• fleetness
  noun
• fleetly
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Participles

• fleeting
  present
• fleeted
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• fleet
  simple
• fleets
  simple
• have fleeted
  perfect
• has fleeted
  perfect
• am fleeting
  progressive
• are fleeting
  progressive
• is fleeting
  progressive
• have been fleeting
  perfect progressive
• has been fleeting
  perfect progressive

Past

• fleeted
  simple
• had fleeted
  perfect
• was fleeting
  progressive
• were fleeting
  progressive
• had been fleeting
  perfect progressive

Future

• will fleet
  simple
• will have fleeted
  perfect
• will be fleeting
  progressive
• will have been fleeting
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of fleet¹

First recorded before 1000; Middle English flete, fleot(e), Old English flēot “bay, estuary; boat,” derivative of flēotan float ( def. ); cf. fleet ²

Origin of fleet²

First recorded in 1520–30; probably from or akin to Old Norse fljótr “quick, speedy”

Origin of fleet³

First recorded before 900; Middle English flete, Old English flēot “flowing water”; cognate with German Fliess “brook”; fleet ³ def. 3 is so called after the Fleet a stream, later covered and used as a sewer, near which the prison was located; fleet ¹ ( def. )

Explanation

A fleet is usually a large group of ships, but it can be any group of vessels like planes or cars that operate as a unit. A naval fleet is the largest formation of warships. A naval fleet at sea is like an army on land. One meaning of fleet comes from the Old English fleot, meaning “ship,” “raft,” or “floating vessel.” Although a fleet is usually a group of ships or airplanes operating under the same ownership, any group of vessels sailing together can be called a fleet, even you and your friends in a fleet of kayaks. Another meaning of fleet originates in the Old English flēotan, which means “moving swiftly.” When it’s used in that way, it’s usually in the -ing form, fleeting.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

fleet Fleet fleeter fleetest fleets fleeted fleeting

One raid took place at a bar in which ICE rolled up with a fleet of rented buses at 1 a.m. on Sunday morning.

From Salon ● Sep. 1, 2026

Tesla trades lower even as investors anticipate the potential entry of Cybercab into the company’s fleet of self-driving cabs.

From Barron's ● Sep. 1, 2026

SpaceX has built the largest satellite fleet in history for its Starlink service, making low-Earth orbit significantly more crowded.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 30, 2026

USC was at its best early, even with its fleet of freshmen needing time to find their footing.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 29, 2026

He knew that a British fleet under Admiral Thomas Graves was on its way to Yorktown from New York.

From "George Washington, Spymaster" by Thomas B. Allen

Fleet operators acknowledged that some drivers have been apprehensive to make the leap to zero-emission trucks because the technology is new and charging can be a challenge.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 27, 2026

Central Command headquarters, some in the Navy’s 5th Fleet in Bahrain, some on each ship.

From Slate ● Aug. 19, 2026

Pacific Fleet, serves as the top official overseeing Rimpac.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 1, 2026

Natalie Fleet says she has stepped down as safeguarding minister after finding the role "overwhelmingly triggering", telling the BBC that it was making her ill.

From BBC ● Jul. 22, 2026

Inside the windowless space, top commanders of the Soviet navy’s Northern Fleet sat at a table.

From "Fallout: Spies, Superbombs, and the Ultimate Cold War Showdown" by Steve Sheinkin

The Rams defense will try to neutralize the 44-year-old Brady, who is not as mobile as younger, fleeter quarterbacks but remains a master at moving in the pocket.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 22, 2022

Some tempos, freshly rethought, were fleeter than you usually hear; other passages were nobly expansive.

From New York Times ● Aug. 2, 2015

Something kind of similar is happening in the fleeter, more escapist Arrow and The Flash, two ongoing series on the CW based on DC Comics characters.

From Slate ● Mar. 9, 2015

Tendulkar, still fleeter of foot than some of his peers, was the man in fruitless pursuit.

From The Guardian ● Jul. 21, 2011

A Fawn once said to a Stag: "Father, you are larger and fleeter than the dogs, and, besides, you have huge antlers for defence; why, then, are you so afraid of the dogs?"

From Fables for Children, Stories for Children, Natural Science Stories, Popular Education, Decembrists, Moral Tales by Leo Tolstoy, Count

All athletic actions are essentially micro-decisions, and even the fleetest and most impulsive seeming NFL wide receiver must make feints, counter-feints, and judgments.

From Washington Post ● Sep. 27, 2022

The stagecraft by which customers who just a minute ago were getting the closest of shaves are removed isn’t the fleetest.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 29, 2019

Joe Lapchick’s squads in the 1950s were among the fleetest in the game, but since then only a handful of Knicks team could reasonably be described as using an up-tempo offense.

From New York Times ● Jan. 2, 2016

"I'm not the fleetest of foot but I was just fast enough to get there."

From Reuters ● Oct. 16, 2015

It was only a brief rest; but the Zunguin warriors profited by it, and their fleetest men were already rounding the cattle to turn them up the hill.

From Tales from the Veld by Ernest Glanville

Kodiak’s “virtual driver” system, which is designed to be integrated across fleets, logged more than 40,000 paid driverless hours across 35 trucks during the second quarter.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 25, 2026

While seat-back screens have remained a stalwart feature on planes that fly lengthy international journeys, many airline executives for years were convinced they weren’t worth having on their domestic fleets.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 18, 2026

The bank projects robotaxi fleets to number roughly 2.5 million vehicles globally by 2035.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 5, 2026

Fishing fleets often rely on a few key species to make ends meet, said Sunny Jardine, a resource and environmental economist at the University of Washington.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 29, 2026

Now contrast those events in China with what happened when fleets of exploration began to sail from politically fragmented Europe.

From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond

Another day of hiding and a night of journey had fleeted by.

From "The Return of the King" by J.R.R. Tolkien

“I had rather count on Aunt,” said Flora, with one of her rare and adorable smiles, which fleeted as it came.

From The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) by Robert Louis Stevenson

There was something lyrical about the “dirty ship” as with the buoyancy of her cargoless holds she fleeted to the south.

From The Bonadventure A Random Journal of an Atlantic Holiday by Edmund Blunden

The expression of indecision still fleeted across his face; he seemed as if weighing his thoughts in the balance, and the considerations he was revolving left him still silent.

From The House of Souls by Arthur Machen

The bog ditches fleeted by at some twelve miles an hour; they were the softest, blackest, and deepest that I have ever seen, and I thanked heaven that I was not in my red coat.

From Further Experiences of an Irish R.M. by Martin Ross

Then come the notions and hardware, like earring posts, beads and crystal accents, that complete the transformation from fleeting flora to lasting adornment.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 2, 2026

Given the phrase’s innate poeticism, it’s often used by scholars, authors, casanovas and perhaps overly didactic filmmakers to convey the fleeting intensity of life’s most burning joys.

From Salon ● Aug. 26, 2026

Yet his initial tenure in the English top flight was fleeting.

From BBC ● Aug. 25, 2026

Researchers in Japan have captured an extraordinarily fast electronic transformation inside a metal-organic framework, observing a fleeting state and the hidden state that followed within just 30 femtoseconds.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 21, 2026

I felt a fleeting sense of sadness, like when I’d realized how much Togbe’s death had aged Ma.

From "Flying Through Water" by Mamle Wolo

Related Words

• armada
• flotilla
• navy
• squadron