fleet

UK/ˈfliːt/US/ˈfliːt/

nounB2Very common — you will meet it every day · #2,380 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: fleets

A fleet is a group of ships or vehicles under one control. The Royal Navy's fleet, a fleet of taxis, fleet management.

Its everyday use is commercial now — a company fleet is the cars it owns and runs, and fleet buyers get the best prices because they order in hundreds. Fleet is also an old adjective meaning swift, which is a separate word. Note the link with float.

Definitions of fleet

1nounfleetA group of ships or vehicles under one control.B2
“The fishing fleet returned to harbour before the storm.”

fleet is a group.

Where it comes from

Old English fleot means a ship, from a root meaning to float. The adjective fleet, meaning swift, is a different word.

Proto-Indo-European
*plew-
Proto-Germanic
*flutōną — to float
Proto-West Germanic
*flotōn
Old English
flēot — ship
Middle English
flete
English, today
fleet

Built from

flet · Middle English — fleet

From Middle English flete, flet (“fleet”), from Old English flēot (“ship”), likely related to Proto-West Germanic flotōn, from Proto-Germanic flutōną (“to float”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

fleet in the wild

The British lost more ships and over twice as many sailors but succeeded in containing the German fleet.
Battle of Jutland
Chester William Nimitz was a fleet admiral in the United States Navy.
Chester W. Nimitz
The Seventh Fleet is a numbered fleet of the United States Navy.
United States Seventh Fleet
At present, it is the largest of the forward-deployed U.S. fleets, with 50 to 70 ships, 150 aircraft and 27,000 sailors and marines.
United States Seventh Fleet
The United States Third Fleet is the largest numbered fleet in the United States Navy.
United States Third Fleet

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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