Liberty ship

American

noun

a slow cargo ship built in large numbers for the U.S. merchant marine during World War II and having a capacity of about 11,000 deadweight tons.

liberty ship British

noun

a supply ship of World War II

"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

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.

My high school science teacher, who staffed a gun tub on a Liberty ship in World War II, once mistook Venus for a highflying enemy airplane and tried to shoot it down.

From Washington Post • Apr. 30, 2023

“The last Liberty ship I got off, I swore to God I would never get on another one,” the 93-year-old U.S.

From Washington Post • Nov. 20, 2018

“They assigned me to another ship because there were a couple holes in the first ship,” he said of the Liberty ship he was first stationed on.

From Washington Times • Jun. 3, 2017

At Pier 42, the Liberty ship John W. Brown was still on duty.

From New York Times • Jun. 1, 2016

Gibson captained a World War II troop-and cargo-carrying Liberty ship when he was only 22, later became a senior vice president of Grace Lines, head of the U.S.

From Time Magazine Archive

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