fleet

English Online Dictionary. What means fleet‎? What does fleet mean?

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /fliːt/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /flit/
• Rhymes: -iːt

Etymology 1

From Middle English flete, flet (“fleet”), from Old English flēot (“ship”), likely related to Proto-West Germanic *flotōn, from Proto-Germanic *flutōną (“to float”).

Noun

fleet (plural fleets)

1. A group of vessels or vehicles.
2. Any group of associated items.
3. A large, coordinated group of people.
4. (nautical) A number of vessels in company, especially war vessels; also, the collective naval force of a country, etc.
5. (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.
6. The individual waves in corrugated fiberboard.

Alternative forms

• fleete (obsolete)

Derived terms

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English flete (“bay, gulf”), from Old English flēot (“a bay, gulf, an arm of the sea, estuary, the mouth of a river”), from Proto-West Germanic *fleut, from Proto-Germanic *fleutą.

Cognate with Dutch vliet (“stream, river, creek, inlet”), German Fleet (“watercourse, canal”).

Noun

fleet (plural fleets)

1. (dialectal, obsolete outside of place names) An arm of the sea; a run of water, such as an inlet or a creek.
   • 1628, A. Matthewes (translator), Aminta (originally by Torquato Tasso)

     Together wove we nets to entrap the fish
     In floods and sedgy fleets.

2. (nautical) A location, as on a navigable river, where barges are secured.

Derived terms

Etymology 3

From Middle English fleten (“float”), from Old English flēotan (“float”), from Proto-West Germanic *fleutan, from Proto-Germanic *fleutaną.

Verb

fleet (third-person singular simple present fleets, present participle fleeting, simple past and past participle fleeted)

1. (obsolete, intransitive) To float.
2. (ambitransitive) To pass over rapidly; to skim the surface of.
3. (ambitransitive) To hasten over; to cause to pass away lightly, or in mirth and joy.
   • 1817-18, Percy Shelley, Rosalind and Helen, lines 626-627:

     And so through this dark world they fleet / Divided, till in death they meet.

4. (intransitive) To flee, to escape, to speed away.
5. (intransitive) To evanesce, disappear, die out.
6. (nautical) To move up a rope, so as to haul to more advantage; especially to draw apart the blocks of a tackle.
7. (nautical, intransitive, of people) To move or change in position.
8. (nautical, obsolete) To shift the position of dead-eyes when the shrouds are become too long.
9. To cause to slip down the barrel of a capstan or windlass, as a rope or chain.
10. To take the cream from; to skim.

Translations

Adjective

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

1. (literary) Swift in motion; light and quick in going from place to place.

   Synonyms: nimble, fast
2. (uncommon) Light; superficially thin; not penetrating deep, as soil.

Derived terms

Translations

Etymology 4

See flet.

Noun

fleet (plural fleets)

1. (Yorkshire) Obsolete form of flet (“house, floor, large room”).
   • 1686, "Lyke Wake Dirge" as printed in The Oxford Book of English Verse (1900) p. 361:

     Fire and fleet and candle-lighte

Anagrams

• felte, lefte

Middle English

Noun

fleet

1. Alternative form of flete (“bay”)