container ship

American  

[kuhn-tey-ner ship] / kənˈteɪ nər ˌʃɪp /

Or containership

noun

Transportation.

1. a large ship that transports its cargo in truck-size containers that can be transferred from ship to train to truck without unloading and reloading the contents.

   Container ships may be a common sight today, but the arrival of the first American ones in European ports made headlines in the shipping journals of the time.

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Etymology

Origin of container ship

First recorded in 1955–60

Example Sentences

Among the outbound 14 vessels were a South Korea-flagged container ship and a Liberia-flagged massive oil tanker, signaling “that market confidence in the viability of the passage is beginning to return,” Windward said.

From MarketWatch • Jun. 23, 2026

That means they have about five times more cargo space than an airplane, but are five times smaller in length than a typical container ship.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 22, 2026

A Hapag-Lloyd container ship chartered to Maersk was one of several vessels reportedly struck by Iran during the war.

From MarketWatch • Jun. 16, 2026

They identified the vessels as the Panama-flagged container ship MSC Francesca and the Liberia-flagged Epaminondas.

From Barron's • Apr. 23, 2026

My father had told us about the actual, real-life Grande Gongo, a cutting-edge container ship docked in Korea and flying the Italian flag.

From "Confessions of a Murder Suspect" by James Patterson