battle cruiser

American  

noun

1. a warship of maximum speed and firepower, but with lighter armor than a battleship.

---

battle cruiser British  

noun

1. a warship of battleship size but with lighter armour and fewer guns and capable of high speed

---

Etymology

Origin of battle cruiser

First recorded in 1910–15

---

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

battle cruiser

His first ship was the Grafton, a Royal Navy battle cruiser that served in World War I. Scruffy handwriting made the logbooks hard to read, but Purves was hooked.

From Reuters ● Dec. 11, 2019

It is accompanied by the Peter the Great, a massive battle cruiser, with a fearsome array of missiles, but which are designed to hit planes, ships and submarines rather than attack land targets.

From The Guardian ● Nov. 4, 2016

The deployment does mark the first time that Russia has combined the aircraft carrier’s defensive capability with the offensive capability of Peter the Great, a nuclear powered battle cruiser.

From The Guardian ● Oct. 20, 2016

In July 1945, XE1 and XE3 sank the Japanese battle cruiser Takao.

From BBC ● Sep. 21, 2013

The battleship, sometimes called a Dreadnought or super-Dreadnought, after the name of the first of the type, has thicker armour and less speed than the battle cruiser; that is practically all the difference between them.

From The Childrens' Story of the War, Volume 2 (of 10) From the Battle of Mons to the Fall of Antwerp. by James Edward Parrott

Random Word

Spin the wheel and learn a new word!

---