Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A number of warships operating together under one command.
- noun A group of vessels or vehicles, such as taxicabs or fishing boats, owned or operated as a unit.
- adjective Moving swiftly and nimbly. synonym: fast.
- adjective Fleeting; evanescent.
- intransitive verb To move or pass swiftly.
- intransitive verb To fade; vanish.
- intransitive verb Obsolete To flow.
- intransitive verb Obsolete To drift.
- intransitive verb To cause (time) to pass quickly.
- intransitive verb Nautical To alter the position of (tackle or rope, for example).
from The Century Dictionary.
- To float.
- To swim.
- To sail; navigate.
- To flow; run, as water; flow away.
- To overflow; abound.
- To gutter, as a candle.
- To fly swiftly; flit, as a light substance; pass away quickly.
- Nautical, to change place: said of men at work: as, to
fleet forward or aft in a boat. - To fly swiftly over; skim over the surface of: as, a ship that fleets the gulf.
- To cause to pass swiftly or lightly.
- Nautical, to change the position of: as, to
fleet a tackle (to change its position after the blocks are drawn together so as to use it again); to fleet the men aft (to order men to move further aft). - Skimmed; skim: applied to skim-milk or to cheese made from it: as, fleet milk, fleet cheese.
- noun An arm of the sea; an inlet; a river or creek: now used only as an element in place-names: as, Northfleet, Southfleet, Fleetditch.
- noun A number of ships or other vessels, in company, under the same command, or employed in the same service, particularly in war or in fishing: as, a fleet of men-of-war, or of war-canoes; the fishing-fleet on the Banks; the fleet of a steamship company.
- noun Specifically, a number of vessels of war organized for offense or defense under one commander, with subordinate commanders of single vessels and sometimes of squadrons; a naval armament.
- noun In fishing, a single line of 100 hooks: so called when the bultow was introduced in Newfoundland (1846).
- Light; superficially fruitful; thin; not penetrating deep, as soil.
- To skim, as cream from milk.
- Nautical, to skim up fresh water from the surface of (the sea), as practised at the mouth of the Rhone, of the Nile, etc.
- In a manner so as to affect only the surface; superficially.
- Swift of motion; moving or able to move with rapidity; rapid.
- noun A dialectal (Scotch) variant of
flute .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Swift in motion; moving with velocity; light and quick in going from place to place; nimble.
- adjective Prov. Eng. Light; superficially thin; not penetrating deep, as soil.
- transitive verb To pass over rapidly; to skin the surface of.
- transitive verb To hasten over; to cause to pass away lighty, or in mirth and joy.
- transitive verb To draw apart the blocks of; -- said of a tackle.
- transitive verb To cause to slip down the barrel of a capstan or windlass, as a rope or chain.
- transitive verb (Naut.) To move or change in position; used only in special phrases.
- intransitive verb obsolete To sail; to float.
- intransitive verb To fly swiftly; to pass over quickly; to hasten; to flit as a light substance.
- intransitive verb (Naut.) To slip on the whelps or the barrel of a capstan or windlass; -- said of a cable or hawser.
- intransitive verb (Naut.) To move or change in position; -- said of persons.
- noun A number of vessels in company, especially war vessels; also, the collective naval force of a country, etc.
- noun the senior aid of the admiral of a fleet, when a captain.
- noun A flood; a creek or inlet; a bay or estuary; a river; -- obsolete, except as a place name, -- as
Fleet Street in London. - noun A former prison in London, which originally stood near a stream, the
Fleet (now filled up). - noun a clergyman of low character, in, or in the vicinity of, the Fleet prison, who was ready to unite persons in marriage (called
Fleet marriage ) at any hour, without public notice, witnesses, or consent of parents. - transitive verb Prov. Eng. To take the cream from; to skim.
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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If well executed _it would cause the evacuation of all these formidable fortifications_ upon which the rebels ground their hopes for success; and in the event of our fleet attacking Mobile, the presence of our troops in the northern part of Alabama _would be material aid to the fleet_.
A Military Genius Life of Anna Ella Carroll of Maryland Sarah Ellen Blackwell
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The great herring fleet outside the harbor was as motionless as "a painted _fleet_ upon a painted ocean" -- the men were sleeping or smoking upon the piers -- not a foot fell upon the flagged streets, and the only murmur of sound was round the public fountains, where a few women were perched on the bowl's edge, knitting and gossiping.
Winter Evening Tales Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr 1875
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'To the castles about Deal, where _our_ fleet' (_our fleet_, the saucy son of a tailor!) 'lay and anchored; great was the shoot of guns from the castles, and ships, and our answers.'
The Wits and Beaux of Society Volume 1 Philip Wharton 1847
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In 1726 we find him captam of Ae Kdlau, of ieventjr guns, one of the fleet fent m thlit year, vnder iir Charles Wager, to the Bahic, atad appointed to command, with the rank of conunodofe, the third divifion of the fleet*
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"To get at them was impossible before they anchored under such batteries as would have crippled our fleet; and, had such an event happened, _in the present state of the enemy's fleet_, Tuscany, Naples, Rome, Sicily, &c., would have fallen as fast as their ships could have sailed along the coast.
The Life of Nelson, Volume 1 (of 2) The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain 1877
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The remnants of humanity have taken refuge aboard spaceships, and this ragtag fleet is led on a quest through space by William Adama, commander of the Galactica.
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It looks to me that they do best when the fleet is actually running from the Cylons, with the threat of immanent discovery hanging over them.
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When they're back on their training, the fleet is attacked by 8 Cylon Raiders.
worlds in a grain of sand Andrew 2005
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The flagship of this fleet is the church and ex-convent in Ocotlan itself, a dazzling and exquisitely tasteful complex which hosts a gallery, a restaurant, and spaces for meetings, performances and classes.
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The flagship of this fleet is the church and ex-convent in Ocotlan itself, a dazzling and exquisitely tasteful complex which hosts a gallery, a restaurant, and spaces for meetings, performances and classes.
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After the west weaned itself off Russian oil and gas, Moscow redirected its energy exports to India, China and Turkey, relying on a flotilla of “shadow fleet” tankers that proved difficult to bring under sanctions.
Is Trump right that Russia’s economy is on the brink of collapse? Pjotr Sauer 2025
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