Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A fast, lightly armed warship, smaller than a destroyer, often armed for antisubmarine operations.
  • noun An obsolete sailing warship, smaller than a frigate, usually armed with one tier of guns.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A wooden ship of war, flush-decked, frigate-rigged, and having only One tier of guns.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun nautical, historical A flush-decked warship of the 17th-18th centuries having a single tier of guns; it ranked next below a frigate; -- called in the United States navy a sloop of war.
  • noun nautical In a modern navy, a lightly armed and armoured blue water warship, smaller than a frigate, capable of transoceanic duty.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a highly maneuverable escort warship; smaller than a destroyer

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French, a kind of warship, probably from Middle Dutch corf, basket, small ship; see corf.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Borrowing from French corvette.

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Examples

  • The _Iroquois_ and her sisters, built in the fifties, were vessels of the kind to which I have applied the term corvette, then very common in all navies; cruisers only; scouts, or commerce-destroyers.

    From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life 1877

  • The English did not apply the term corvette to brigs, but designated such two-masted vessels as brigs-of-war, though they are sometimes spoken of as brig-sloops.

    How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves Updated to 1900 William Henry Giles Kingston 1847

  • A corvette is so much smaller than a destroyer that I remember going aboard a destroyer a while back, after a spell in a corvette, and congratulating the Captain on the enormous size of his ship.

    What Is the Navy Doing? 1942

  • The corvette is a smart-looking vessel, of 1200 tons burden, and barque rigged.

    Latest News from Abroad 1862

  • A corvette is a vessel slightly smaller than a frigate and is suited mainly for coastal protection work.

    ANC Daily News Briefing 2006

  • She nodded and held out what the folk of Mejis called a corvette - "little packet" was the literal definition; "little purse" was the practical one.

    Wizard and Glass King, Stephen 1997

  • Mediterranean to look out for a French and Spanish squadron, which had been on the coast of Portugal, but returned to Ferrol --- I received all your letters by the Turkish corvette, which is arrived at Messina.

    The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Volume 2 James Harrison

  • I myself have usually called them by the French name corvette, which has a recognized place in English marine phraseology, and means a sloop-of-war of the smaller class.

    From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life 1877

  • This all-purpose nature determined its classification: instead of being given third rank common for Russian ships, such as small hunter-killer, small missile boat, etc., the new ship was classified as a corvette, which, according to Western standard, is an all-purpose warship.

    RIA Novosti 2010

  • This all-purpose nature determined its classification: instead of being given third rank common for Russian ships, such as small hunter-killer, small missile boat, etc., the new ship was classified as a corvette, which, according to Western standard, is an all-purpose warship.

    RIA Novosti 2010

Comments

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  • (noun) - (1) A young sodomite. --John Farmer's Vocabula Amatoria: A French-English Glossary of Words, Phrases, and Allusions Occurring in the Works of Rabelais, Voltaire, Molière, and Others, 1896 (2) From Latin corbita, a large ship for traffic, French corvette. --Hensleigh Wedgwood's Dictionary of English Etymology, 1878

    March 16, 2018

  • This slashifies the lyrics of Little Red Corvette for me rather

    March 17, 2018

  • Good contender for my new list Sodomite Or Small Frigate.

    March 17, 2018

  • *screencaps at once*

    March 17, 2018