corvette
Americannoun
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corvettes
plural
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a warship of the old sailing class, having a flush deck and usually one tier of guns.
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a lightly armed, fast ship used mostly for convoy escort and ranging in size between a destroyer and a gunboat.
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of corvette
1630–40; < French, Middle French < Middle Dutch corver pursuit boat (derivative of corf fishing boat, literally, basket), with suffix altered to -ette -ette
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Example Sentences
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Smaller than a destroyer but bigger than a corvette, they perform a range of missions at sea, from escorting bigger ships to mine warfare and hunting submarines.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 21, 2026
China and Iran deployed destroyer warships, while Russia and the United Arab Emirates sent corvette vessels.
From Barron's ● Jan. 10, 2026
The Boikiy - a corvette armed with guided missiles - broadcast the fake ID code as it passed through the Channel on Saturday.
From BBC ● Jun. 24, 2025
Admiral Tributs and Admiral Panteleyev, two large Russian anti-submarine ships, conducted exercises with a frigate and a corvette of Myanmar's navy, according to Interfax news agency last week.
From Reuters ● Nov. 13, 2023
The fog quietly dispersed as the corvette went about and prepared to deliver her port guns in a similar manner.
From Equatorial America Descriptive of a Visit to St. Thomas, Martinique, Barbadoes, and the Principal Capitals of South America by Maturin Murray Ballou
Two Chinese anti-submarine corvettes have docked at its port for long stretches, although US and Japanese vessels have also made port calls since the base's revamp.
From Barron's ● Oct. 2, 2026
In total, Iran’s navy has lost six of its seven frigates, its two corvettes and one of three ocean-going conventional submarines, said Alex Pape, head of the maritime team at Janes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 12, 2026
Its maritime arm dispatched frigates and corvettes to patrol the coastal waters with little event.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 14, 2024
The shapes are type A56 corvettes of the Chinese navy - 1,500-tonne warships - and they have been berthed alongside a new, Chinese-built pier that is big enough to accommodate much larger vessels.
From BBC ● Oct. 7, 2024
Footnote 50: The allied fleet comprised 23 line-of-battle ships, 31 frigates and corvettes, 29 smaller steamers and gunboats, and 18 other craft.
From The Letters of Queen Victoria : A Selection from Her Majesty's Correspondence between the Years 1837 and 1861 Volume 3, 1854-1861 by Arthur Christopher Benson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
