dreadnought

C2+ Topic:General Vocabulary

US /ˈdrɛdnɔt/ UK /ˈdrɛdnɔːt/ See IPA manual

Meanings

1

noun
a heavily armed early-20th-century battleship

The dreadnought's massive guns dominated the naval race.

Thesaurus

Synonyms

1 noun · a heavily armed... battleship warshipman-of-war

Word family

Related forms dread noughtdreadnaught

Etymology

A compound of 'dread' + 'nought' ('nothing'), literally 'fearing nothing'; the battleship sense comes from HMS Dreadnought (1906), which gave its name to the class.

drǣdan Old English nāwiht Old English

View etymology graph ->

Topics

General Vocabulary

External links

# dreadnought

**Type:** Word
**Level:** C2+
**Part of speech:** noun
**IPA (US):** /ˈdrɛdnɔt/
**IPA (UK):** /ˈdrɛdnɔːt/

## Meanings
1. a heavily armed early-20th-century battleship

## Examples
- The dreadnought's massive guns dominated the naval race.

## Synonyms
- battleship
- warship
- man-of-war

## Related Forms
- dread
- nought
- dreadnaught

## Roots and Affixes
- Root: drǣdan
- Root: nāwiht

## Etymology
A compound of 'dread' + 'nought' ('nothing'), literally 'fearing nothing'; the battleship sense comes from HMS Dreadnought (1906), which gave its name to the class.

## AI Etymology
Dreadnought is a compound of 'dread' + 'nought' ('nothing'), literally 'fearing nothing'; the battleship sense comes from HMS Dreadnought (1906), which gave its name to the class. The ancestry passes through Old English drǣdan and Old English nāwiht. In present use as a noun, it means "a heavily armed early-20th-century battleship", keeping the historical formation close to the word's ordinary semantic work. As a compound, its meaning is assembled from the two visible parts rather than from an opaque borrowing. Related words include dread, nought, and dreadnaught.

## Topics
- General Vocabulary

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