Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
🚢 A cargo vessel 🚀 A space cargo craft
supply ship

supply ship

1 3.9
A spacecraft that delivers food, equipment, and spare parts to a space station
  • noun
  • Specialized
translation icon : nave de carga
  • The last time he'd seen her had been as she was being loaded on a shuttle to be taken up to the orbiting supply ship.

Examples

  • "The next supply ship will arrive in sixty-three local days," said the Elf.

    Fiction book (1999)

  • We did have a supply ship that blew up, but when it did blow up, we got this really nice letter from NASA.

  • If they know we're alive, they can send up a supply ship pronto.

    Fiction book (1998)

  • You know we have a supply ship coming, the Tahiti.

    Fiction book (1998)

  • "Joe, I have Captain Tsao from the supply ship.

    Fiction book (1998)

  • Our people won't have the time, capability, or the reason to try to get a supply ship up to us.

    Fiction book (1998)

  • The supply ship broke orbit and raced toward a safe transit distance only minutes after the shuttle docked.

    Fiction book (1998)

  • The Kube the BAA had sent was indeed a daunting mass of robotic forms that had to be filled out and sent back with the supply ship.

    Fiction book (1998)

  • The supply ship delivered much-needed food and equipment to the astronauts on the space station.

  • After several delays, the supply ship finally launched to bring new experiments to the orbiting lab.

Synonyms

spacecraft
vssupply ship
  • Specialized
165 4.2

A vehicle that travels in outer space

is specifically for carrying supplies to stations or other craft
shuttlecraft
vssupply ship
36 7.9

A small vehicle that carries people and goods between a spaceship and a space station

is used for larger cargo deliveries rather than short transport hops
shuttlepod
vssupply ship
13 8.1

A small vehicle that moves people and cargo short distances between a large ship and a planet or station

is larger and intended for sustained supply runs to stations or other craft
space vehicle
vssupply ship
  • Specialized
4 3.5

A machine built to travel in outer space, like a spacecraft or satellite

focuses only on delivering cargo and equipment to stations or other craft

How Big

freighter
83 4.0
cargo ship
26 3.0
supply ship
  • Specialized
1 3.9
fuel pod
  • Specialized
2 5.5

Surface Forms

supply ship singular
supply ships plural

Morphology

supplies + ship

The meaning 'a ship that delivers supplies' is directly derivable from combining 'supplies' and 'ship' via a standard noun–noun compounding pattern; a learner who knows both words will infer it denotes a vessel used to carry or deliver supplies (including in space contexts). This compositional, cross-linguistically common pattern makes the expression immediately comprehensible to a B1 learner.

Etymology

Supply ship was later used for space: imagine a vehicle carrying boxes and equipment to a space station and docking to pass them on. So the term now also means 'a cargo spacecraft that delivers supplies to a space station'.