Fleet
nounA group of ships, aircraft, or vehicles operating together or under one ownership.
How to spell fleet
5 letters · 1 syllable
How to pronounce fleet
What does fleet mean?
- nounA group of ships, aircraft, or vehicles operating together or under one ownership.
- adjectiveMoving or able to move very quickly; nimble.
Fleet in a sentence
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noun
The navy sent its entire fleet to patrol the coast.
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adjective
The fleet runner overtook the field on the final bend.
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noun
The courier company manages a fleet of delivery vans.
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adjective
She was fleet of foot and won every sprint at school.
Where does fleet come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
The word fleet traces back to Old English, where the verb fleotan meant 'to float, drift, or flow swiftly' and the related noun fleot named a creek, an estuary, or a stretch of flowing water. From the idea of vessels floating together on the water came the sense of a fleet as a body of ships sailing in company, a meaning well established by the medieval period. The adjective fleet, meaning 'swift' or 'rapid', grew from the same root notion of gliding quickly through water or air, and may also owe something to Old Norse fljotr, 'swift'. The London prison and the street both called Fleet take their name from the old Fleet river, a now buried watercourse, preserving that ancient 'flowing water' sense. Because all of these threads share one short, transparent spelling, fleet is one of those rare words whose modern forms are far harder to untangle in meaning than in spelling.
How the word is built
- fleet (from Old English fleot/fleotan: to float, to flow swiftly)
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