Fleet

English

Noun

Fleet (plural Fleets)

1. A group of vessels or vehicles.
2. (nautical) A number of vessels in company, especially war vessels; also, the collective naval force of a country, etc.
3. (nautical, British Royal Navy) Any command of vessels exceeding a squadron in size, or a rear-admiral's command, composed of five sail-of-the-line, with any number of smaller vessels.

Noun

Fleet (plural Fleets)

1. (nautical, obsolete) A flood; a creek or inlet, a bay or estuary, a river subject to the tide.
2. (nautical) A location, as on a navigable river, where barges are secured.

Derived terms

• Fleet
• fleet in being
• Fleet Street

Verb

Fleet (third-person singular simple present Fleets, present participle Fleeting, simple past and past participle Fleeted)

1. (obsolete) To float.

   [Antony] "Our sever'd navy too,
   Have knit again, and fleet, threat'ning most sea-like." -- Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra

2. To pass over rapidly; to skim the surface of

   a ship that fleets the gulf

3. To hasten over; to cause to pass away lightly, or in mirth and joy

   And so through this dark world they fleet / Divided, till in death they meet; -- Percy Shelley, Rosalind and Helen.

4. (nautical) To move up a rope, so as to haul to more advantage; especially to draw apart the blocks of a tackle.
5. (nautical, obsolete) To shift the position of dead-eyes when the shrouds are become too long.
6. To cause to slip down the barrel of a capstan or windlass, as a rope or chain.
7. To take the cream from; to skim.

Adjective

Fleet (comparative fleeter or more fleet, superlative fleetest or most fleet)

1. Swift in motion; moving with velocity; light and quick in going from place to place; nimble; fast.
   • 1908: Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

     ...it was not till the afternoon that they came out on the high-road, their first high-road; and there disaster, fleet and unforeseen, sprang out on them--disaster momentous indeed to their expedition...

2. Light; superficially thin; not penetrating deep, as soil.

Thesaurus

Naval Construction Battalion, RN, Royal Navy, Seabees, USN, United States Navy, age group, agile, alert, animated, argosy, armada, ball the jack, band, barrel, battalion, beguile, bevy, body, boom, bottoms, bowl along, breakneck, breeze, breeze along, brief, brigade, brisk, brush, bunch, cabal, cast, clip, clique, coast guard, cohort, cometary, company, complement, contingent, convoy, corps, coterie, covey, crew, crowd, cut along, dally, dashing, detachment, detail, disappear, division, double-quick, eagle-winged, escadrille, evanesce, evaporate, expeditious, express, faction, fade, fast, featly, flashing, flickering, flit, flotilla, fly, fly low, flying, foot, fritter, galloping, gang, go fast, graceful, group, grouping, groupment, hair-trigger, hasty, headlong, highball, hustling, idle, in-group, junta, light, light of heel, light-footed, line, lively, make good, make knots, marine, melt, melt like snow, merchant fleet, merchant marine, merchant navy, mercurial, meteoric, mob, mosquito fleet, movement, naval forces, naval militia, naval reserve, navy, neat-fingered, neat-handed, nimble, nimble-footed, nip, nit, out-group, outfit, outstrip the wind, pack, party, pass, pass away, peart, peer group, phalanx, platoon, posse, potter, pour it on, precipitate, prompt, quick, quick as lightning, quick as thought, rapid, reckless, regiment, rip, running, sail, salon, scorch, set, shipping, ships, short, short and sweet, short-term, short-termed, sink, sizzle, skim, snappy, spanking, speed, speedy, spirited, sprightly, spry, squad, squadron, squander, stable, storm along, string, sure-footed, sweep, swift, task force, task group, tatter, team, tear, tear along, thunder along, tonnage, tribe, troop, troupe, vanish, vivacious, waste, whaling fleet, whisk, whiz, wile, wing, winged, zing, zip, zoom

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA: /fliːt/, SAMPA: /fli:t/

  Audio (US)

  noicon

  (file)

  Rhymes: -iːt

Etymology 1

From Middle English flet, flete, from Old English flēot (“ship”)

Etymology 2

From Middle English flet, flete, from Old English flēot (“river, estuary”)

Etymology 3

From Middle English fleten (“float”), from Old English flēotan (“float”)

Translations

Noun

a group of vessels

Czech: flota (cs) f., loďstvo (cs) n. Danish: flåde (da) c. Dutch: vloot (nl) m. and f. Finnish: laivasto (fi) French: flotte (fr) f. German: Flotte (de) f. Greek: στόλος (el) m. Hungarian: flotta (hu)

Italian: flotta (it) Latin: classis (la) f. Portuguese: frota (pt) f. Russian: флотилия (ru) (flotílija) f. Scottish Gaelic: cabhlach (gd) m. Spanish: flota (es) f. Swedish: flotta (sv) c.