U-boat
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of U-boat
1910–15; < German U-Boot, short for Unterseeboot literally, undersea boat
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.
The first dog sled patrols began in eastern Greenland during World War II, when they discovered and helped destroy German weather stations, denying the Germans crucial information for their U-boat campaign in the Atlantic.
From Barron's • Jan. 28, 2026
The narrow Straits of Gibraltar was particularly harrowing for U-boat captains and crews.
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 7, 2025
But as happened elsewhere in the country, much of L.A.’s public German community went to ground after May 1915, when a German U-boat sank the British ocean liner Lusitania.
From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 8, 2025
The ship had encountered a German U-boat, they claimed, and the platypus had been shaken to death amid a barrage of blasts.
From BBC • Aug. 2, 2025
Despite his fraying nerves, Dasch remembered the captain of the U-boat telling him the sailors had a flare in case they had trouble getting back to the submarine.
From Nazi Saboteurs by Samantha Seiple
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.
