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

When we think about globalization only as a tax-avoidance scheme and talk only about the back and forth flow of container ships, we miss the defining feature of the U.S. model.

From Barron's

Unromantic about what life is like for most seafarers, Henderson dreams of making automated battery-powered container ships with no crew at all.

From The Wall Street Journal

A week before Christmas shipping giant Maersk sent a container ship through it for the first time in almost two years.

From BBC

In 2025, Chinese container ships completed 14 voyages through the Northern Sea Route along Russia’s Arctic coast, up from seven in 2023.

From MarketWatch

A Chinese container ship sailed to Europe in half the time of traditional southern routes this fall.

From The Wall Street Journal