treasure ship
noun
Simple meaning
A type of vast, multi-masted Chinese vessel used on the Ming treasure voyages.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
trehzhershipSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈtɹɛʒɚˈʃɪp
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
historical
A 16th-century ship loaded with treasure
historical
A type of vast, multi-masted Chinese vessel used on the Ming treasure voyages, led by Zheng He in the first half of the 15th century, used for command purposes and the transportation of treasure.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: A 16th-century ship loaded with treasure
Used this way, treasure ship is an older-sounding word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in historical writing and literature or storytelling contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Dated
- Connotation
- Old-fashioned
- Usage feel
- Dated in modern speech
Where it naturally appears
- Historical writing
- Literature/storytelling
Usage note
This meaning still makes sense to most readers, but it sounds a generation behind current usage.
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.