captain horatio hornblower
noun · n
Simple meaning
A fictional English admiral during the Napoleonic Wars in novels written by C.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
kaptuhnerayshohawrnbloherSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈkæptənɚeɪʃoʊɔɹnbloʊɚ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A fictional English admiral during the Napoleonic Wars in novels written by C. S. Forester
n
A 1951 British naval swashbuckling war film in Technicolor from Warner Bros., produced by Gerry Mitchell, directed by Raoul Walsh, that stars Gregory Peck, Virginia Mayo, Robert Beatty and Terence Morgan.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A fictional English admiral during the Napoleonic Wars in novels written by C. S. Forester
Used this way, captain horatio hornblower is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in technical or specialist writing contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.