U-boat

[ yoo-boht ]

/ ˈyuˌboʊt /

noun

a German submarine.

RELATED WORDS

submersible

Origin of U-boat

1910–15; < German U-Boot, short for Unterseeboot literally, undersea boat

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for u-boat

Prominent among those struggles was the battle of the Atlantic, waged against the U-boat menace.
D-Day Was The Largest And One Of The Bloodiest Invasions In History|James A. Warren|June 6, 2014|DAILY BEAST
I suspect that the production stopped short of plagiarism, but it probably sailed very close to the U-boat.
The Fascist Historian and Me|Guy Walters|January 12, 2014|DAILY BEAST
He died in 1941, just 35, after a German U-Boat torpedoed the ship on which he was sailing as a BBC correspondent to Cairo.
The Grand Tour in Style: Robert Byron’s ‘Europe in the Looking-Glass’|Malcolm Forbes|November 16, 2012|DAILY BEAST
If he spotted a U-boat, not only would he call for backup, he wanted to attack the sub himself.
Just the Fact: Hemingway's Hand Grenades|Terry Mort|September 2, 2009|DAILY BEAST

We seem just to have struck the peak of the midsummer U-boat campaign.
Sea-Hounds|Lewis R. Freeman
Captain Hassan was taken aboard the U-boat, and no further knowledge of his fate has been received.
Lest We Forget|John Gilbert Thompson
Our moderate estimators here put it down as three, with one transport ramming and sinking one U-boat.
The U-boat hunters|James B. Connolly
Other U-boat commanders would appear off the hunting grounds and attack ships in more or less easy-going fashion.
The Victory At Sea|William Sowden Sims
The uniform and underclothes were almost as wet as when Alec had arrived on board the U-boat.
The Thick of the Fray at Zeebrugge|Percy F. Westerman

British Dictionary definitions for u-boat

U-boat

noun

a German submarine, esp in World Wars I and II

Word Origin for U-boat

from German U-Boot, abbreviation for Unterseeboot, literally: undersea boat

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

Word Origin and History for u-boat