pocket battleship
- noun
- Archaic
:
acorazado de bolsillo
- German pocket battleship
Examples
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I was determined to use a pocket battleship as I wanted the cool factor on my side, so I looked at the Oracle.
Blog text (23) -
The German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee was involved in several naval confrontations during World War II.
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During the interwar period, nations developed pocket battleships to navigate the constraints of naval treaties.
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The design of the pocket battleship allowed for significant firepower while maintaining a smaller size than traditional battleships.
Synonyms
140
3.6
A navy boat built for fighting at sea
68
5.5
A large ship used in war with thick metal armor and big guns
1
5.3
A navy ship built to fight at sea
How Big
- Archaic
68
5.5
- Archaic
- Specialized
50
7.4
- Specialized
62
7.3
- Archaic
7
9.9
- Specialized
43
8.2
- Specialized
7
3.5
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'pocket' conveys small/compact and 'battleship' conveys a powerful warship, so a learner who knows both words will infer a small or compact battleship. The specialized historical nuance about treaty limits is extra detail and not needed for basic understanding, making the core sense transparent to a B1 learner.
Etymology
Pocket battleship got its name from the idea of a small ship (pocket) that carried the heavy guns of a big battleship. One popular story says countries built these smaller ships to 'get around' the size rules of a treaty, so the name came to mean a small warship with very big guns.