landing craft

American

noun

Navy.

any of various flat-bottomed vessels designed to move troops and equipment close to shore.

landing craft British

noun

military any small vessel designed for the landing of troops and equipment on beaches

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of landing craft

First recorded in 1935–40

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Targets: They are designed to protect shorelines and islands from approaching ships and landing craft.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 12, 2026

Targets: Medium-tonnage ships, landing craft and small submarines.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 12, 2026

He enlisted for army training at Colchester and was kept in reserve before being sent to Normandy on a landing craft on 25 June 1944.

From BBC • Dec. 28, 2025

British Steel was used to make landing craft that carried troops to storm the beaches of northern France on D-Day, paving the way for the end of World War Two.

From BBC • Apr. 10, 2025

More than anything, that was what my newly enlisted father, Seaman 2nd Class Milton Stephanides, looked like as he bounced in a landing craft off the California coast in the fall of 1944.

From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023