blockade-runner

[blo-keyd-ruhn-er]

noun

1. a ship or person that passes through a blockade.

Other Word Forms

• blockade-running noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of blockade-runner¹

First recorded in 1860–65

Example Sentences

Not long after he got the top of his head shot off in the Battle of Chickamauga, Cudn Vanna married an Englishman, a blockade-runner for the Confederates.

Read more on Literature

During the Civil War, as Atlanta smoldered, Root’s father had smuggled him to Liverpool, England, aboard a Confederate blockade-runner.

Read more on Literature

This projectile was dubbed ‘the Devil’ by those on board, who were by no means anxious to hear its voice, for the lightly-built blockade-runner trembled in every knee at each discharge.

Read more on Project Gutenberg

In 1862 he retired from the navy with the rank of post-captain; but his love of adventure led him, during the American Civil War, to take the command of a blockade-runner.

Read more on Project Gutenberg

He had graduated from the Naval Academy in 1863, and, by an act of daring gallantry in cutting out a blockade-runner, had easily won a lieutenant's commission.

Read more on Project Gutenberg