ships
noun · verb
Form of ship , plural of ship.
Simple meaning
A water-borne vessel generally larger than a boat.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
shipsIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈʃɪps
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
plural of ship
A water-borne vessel generally larger than a boat.
plural of ship
A vessel which travels through any medium other than across land, such as an airship or spaceship.
plural of shipcellular automatachiefly in combination
A spaceship.
plural of ship
A dish or utensil (originally fashioned like the hull of a ship) used to hold incense.
verb
third-person singular of ship
Transport commercially
third-person singular of ship
To send by water-borne transport.
third-person singular of ship
To send (a parcel or container) to a recipient (by any means of transport).
third-person singular of ship
Place on board a ship
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A water-borne vessel generally larger than a boat.
Used this way, ships is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a nautical use: it is standard at sea and largely unfamiliar ashore.
- 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
- Sailing/maritime
- 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.