warship
Americannoun
-
warships
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of warship
Explanation
A warship is a military sea vessel that's usually armed with weapons. A country's navy uses warships in battles or to transport troops. A battleship is one specific kind of warship, a very large one that's outfitted with weapons and heavily defended against attack. All warships are prepared for war (which is where they get their name), and most of them are controlled by the naval forces of a nation. Many countries move their warships into particular regions to exert political force on adversaries, or send them to protect civilian or cargo ships from pirate attacks.
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.
See Examples For:
The Russian warship requested that that HMS Tyne reposition to a safer distance, which it did.
From BBC ● Jul. 20, 2026
Germany on Wednesday pulled the plug on its largest naval order in decades after the anti-submarine warship project suffered delays, a setback for the country's ambitions to overhaul its military.
From Barron's ● Jun. 24, 2026
TOKYO—Among the more eye-catching products in Tokyo’s new defense shopfront: a sleek and stealthy warship that can hunt submarines, deploy underwater drones and operate with a lean crew.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 21, 2026
For years, a lone Chinese warship was tasked with sailing up and down the Taiwan Strait.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 20, 2026
Then he had returned to Camp Jupiter with his new girlfriend Piper and a whole bunch of Greek friends in a warship.
From "The House of Hades" by Rick Riordan
Last month, Chinese and Russian naval warships sailed through a strait in the Kuril islands during a joint patrol.
From BBC ● Aug. 13, 2026
Rescuers with backup from two Indonesian warships and a navy surveillance aircraft were searching for survivors even as estimates of the number of missing people kept changing.
From Barron's ● Aug. 3, 2026
Chaff, which has been used on military aircraft and warships since World War II, is a radar countermeasure usually made of tiny aluminum-coated glass fibers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 22, 2026
Key plans to transform the military with drones, and uncrewed warships and aircraft are still not fully funded.
From BBC ● Jul. 20, 2026
“Those two warships today gave us just a little hint of what’s to come,” Paul said.
From I Survived the American Revolution, 1776 by Lauren Tarshis
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.
