container ship

American  

[kuhn-tay-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

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

container ship

A container ship in the Suez Canal ran aground and blocked the waterway for six days, delaying the delivery of billions of dollars of goods.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 27, 2026

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 alternate route can take about two weeks to cross the Atlantic, while a standard container ship would take about nine days, and an airplane would only take eight hours.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 22, 2026

In the early hours of 26 March, the M/V Dali container ship crashed into the landmark Francis Scott Key Bridge, sending several vehicles on the bridge plunging into the river and killing six construction workers.

From BBC ● May 12, 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

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