dreadnought

dreadnought
/dred"nawt'/, n.
1. a type of battleship armed with heavy-caliber guns in turrets: so called from the British battleship Dreadnought, launched in 1906, the first of its type.
2. an outer garment of heavy woolen cloth.
3. a thick cloth with a long pile.
Also, dreadnaught.
[1800-10; DREAD + NOUGHT]

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▪ British battleship
 British battleship launched in 1906 that established the pattern of the turbine-powered, “all-big-gun” warship, a type that dominated the world's navies for the next 35 years.

      The Dreadnought displaced 18,000 tons (more than 20,000 tons full load), was 526 feet (160 m) long, and carried a crew of about 800. Its four propeller shafts, powered by steam turbines instead of the traditional steam pistons, gave it an unprecedented top speed of 21 knots. Because recent improvements in naval gunnery had made it unnecessary to prepare for short-range battle, Dreadnought carried no guns of secondary calibre. Instead, it mounted a single-calibre main armament of 10 12-inch guns in five twin turrets. In addition, 24 3-inch quick-firing guns, 5 Maxim machine guns, and 4 torpedo tubes were added for fighting off destroyers and torpedo boats.

      The Dreadnought immediately made all preceding battleships obsolete, but by World War I it was obsolescent itself, having been outclassed by faster “superdreadnoughts” carrying bigger guns. The Dreadnought's only notable engagement of the war was the ramming and sinking of a German U-boat near the Pentland Firth, Scot., in March 1915. Placed in reserve in 1919, the ship was sold for scrap the following year and broken up in 1923.

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Universalium. 2010.

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Look at other dictionaries:

  • Dreadnought! —   …   Wikipedia

  • dreadnought — ● dreadnought nom masculin (anglais dreadnought) Type de cuirassé anglais lancé en 1906. (Il constitua l élément principal des flottes de guerre jusqu en 1939.) ⇒DREADNOUGHT, subst. masc. Vx. Cuirassé d escadre anglais de gros tonnage, comportant …   Encyclopédie Universelle

  • dreadnought — DREADNOÚGHT s.n. (mar.) Tip de cuirasat rapid, puternic blindat şi cu tunuri de mare calibru. [pron. dred nót. / cf. engl., fr., it. dreadnought < engl. dread – a i fi frică, nought – nimic]. Trimis de LauraGellner, 25.02.2005. Sursa: DN …   Dicționar Român

  • Dreadnought — Dread nought , n. 1. (Capitalized) A British battleship, completed in 1906 1907, having an armament consisting of ten 12 inch guns mounted in turrets, and of twenty four 12 pound quick fire guns for protection against torpedo boats. This was the… …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • dreadnought — or dreadnaught [dred′nôt΄] n. 1. a) a coat made of a thick woolen cloth b) the cloth 2. [after Dreadnought, the first of such a class of British battleships, built in 1906] any large, heavily armored battleship with many powerful guns …   English World dictionary

  • dreadnought — {{hw}}{{dreadnought}}{{/hw}}(mar.) Tipo di corazzata veloce …   Enciclopedia di italiano

  • Dreadnought — battleship, lit. fearing nothing, from DREAD (Cf. dread) + NOUGHT (Cf. nought). Mentioned as the name of a ship in the Royal Navy c.1596, but modern sense is from the name of the first of a new class of British battleships mainly armed with big… …   Etymology dictionary

  • dreadnought — (izg. drèdnot) m DEFINICIJA vojn. pom. ratni brod, prethodnik bojnih brodova (poč. 20. st.) ETIMOLOGIJA engl …   Hrvatski jezični portal

  • Dreadnought — For other uses, see Dreadnought (disambiguation). The oldest remaining dreadnought, USS Texas, was launched in 1912 and is now a museum ship. The dreadnought was the predominant type of 20th century battleship. The first of the kind, the… …   Wikipedia

  • Dreadnought — Le seul dreadnought encore existant, l USS Texas, lancé en 1912. Le dreadnought est le type prédominant de cuirassé du XXe siècle. Il tire son nom du navire de guerre britannique HMS Dreadnought, lancé en 1906, qui présentait deux… …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Dreadnought — Der englische Begriff Dreadnought (deutsche Bedeutung: Fürchtenichts) bezeichnete in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts einen neuen Typ von Kriegsschiff, der ab 1906 die bis dahin vorherrschenden Linienschiffe in jeder Hinsicht übertrumpfte.… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

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