dreadnought
Pluraldreadnoughts
- 1A battleship, especially one from around World War I, whose firepower is concentrated mostly in large guns all of the same caliber.
Britain and Germany raced to build dreadnoughts in the years before World War I.
The admiral watched his flagship, a dreadnought with ten heavy guns, steam out of the harbor.
Note
The type takes its name from HMS Dreadnought, the first battleship of the kind to be completed, whose own name meant "fear nothing." Older battleships, armed with guns of mixed sizes, came to be called pre-dreadnoughts. As a technical term it now belongs to naval history; the class is written lowercase, and the capital is kept for HMS Dreadnought herself.
- 2Someone or something that is the largest or the most powerful of its kind.
A dreadnought refrigerator took up most of one kitchen wall.
The merger turned the firm into a dreadnought of the publishing world.
Similargiant, behemoth, colossus, titan, juggernaut
Oppositeminnow
Note
The battleship's bulk carried over into everyday exaggeration, and the word often sits before another noun like an adjective: J. P. Donleavy's A Singular Man has Herbert steering "the dreadnought limousine through the night." A dreadnought car, fridge or firm is simply the biggest and heaviest of its kind.
- 3Any warship more heavily armored or armed than a typical battleship.
In the film's final battle, a rebel squadron takes down an enemy dreadnought twice the size of any battleship.
Fans of the game argue over which faction's dreadnoughts carry the heaviest armor.
Note
The informal sense lets go of the strict single-caliber type and keeps only the sheer size. It is at home in science fiction and games: in BioWare's Mass Effect a two-kilometer flagship is "an enormous dreadnought larger than any other ship in any known fleet." Writing about real navies should keep to the strict meaning.
- 4A type of acoustic guitar with a very large body and a less pronounced waist than other guitar shapes, giving a deep, bold sound.
The singer switched from a small parlor guitar to a dreadnought for the bigger room.
Dreadnoughts are a favorite of bluegrass players who need to be heard over a banjo.
Note
Guitar makers borrowed this name from HMS Dreadnought, the ship behind the big-gun battleship, to signal sheer size. It names a body shape, not a brand, and builders offer it beside smaller shapes such as the parlor guitar. Players choose it for volume: to strum chords or to be heard in a band.
- 5Someone or something that fears nothing.
A dreadnought on the battlefield, he charged the enemy lines without a second thought.
The explorer was a true dreadnought, crossing the ice cap alone in midwinter.
Similardaredevil
Oppositecoward
Note
The original word, built from dread and nought: one who dreads nothing. It can carry menace as well as courage; in Norma Lorre Goodrich's retelling of Beowulf in The Medieval Myths, the call is to "follow after this dreadnought, hard on her tracks." Through HMS Dreadnought it later handed its name to the battleship.
- 6A garment made of thick woolen cloth that protects the wearer against storms and cold.
The clerk shook the rain off his dreadnought before stepping into the warm office.
On winter watches, every man on deck was bundled in a woolen dreadnought.
Note
This is outdoor wear, the kind of heavy coat that comes off at the door: Mr. Guppy, in Dickens's Bleak House (1853), sheds his wet dreadnought in the hall. The same word, like fearnaught, also names the heavy cloth itself, so context decides whether someone is wearing the coat or buying the fabric.
- 7The thick woolen cloth used to make garments that guard against storms and cold.
The mill sold bolts of dreadnought to shipowners outfitting crews for winter voyages.
A lining of dreadnought made the old sea jacket almost windproof.
Practice
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Origins
Named after HMS Dreadnought, the first battleship of this type to be finished; the ship itself took its name from the older word dreadnought.
Formed from dread + nought.