sloop of war

n. pl. sloops of war

A small warship carrying guns on one deck only.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

sloop of war

(Military) (formerly) a small fast sailing warship mounting some 10 to 30 small calibre guns on one deck

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

sloop′ of war′

an armed sailing vessel, smaller than a frigate, having cannons on only one deck.

[1695–1705]

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun

sloop of war - a sailing or steam warship having cannons on only one deck

combat ship, war vessel, warship - a government ship that is available for waging war

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References in classic literature

Thirdly: Some eighteen or twenty years ago Commodore J then commanding an American sloop-of-war of the first class, happened to be dining with a party of whaling captains, on board a Nantucket ship in the harbor of Oahu, Sandwich Islands.

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But not content with this good deed, the indefatigable house again bestirred itself: Samuel and all his Sons --how many, their mother only knows --and under their immediate auspices, and partly, I think, at their expense, the British government was induced to send the sloop-of-war Rattler on a whaling voyage of discovery into the South Sea.

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sloop-of-war Shorewater, through whose wireless Lord Greystoke soon got in communication with London.

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The Mohican was a sloop-of-war that enjoyed rather negative publicity.

Captain Alexander MacLean - The real Sea Wolf (Part 3)

(6) This vessel was said to be a sloop-of-war but may have been the EIC's Ariel, a gun-brig commanded by Lieut.

Following Joseph Burn from Pontianak to Timor: new information from John Clunies Ross, with the reappearance of Alexander Hare

The ship was a wooden sloop-of-war, carrying out blockade duty off Charleston, South Carolina, where the first shots of the American Civil War had been fired almost three years before.

The Moon and the mystery of the Hunley: the Moon & tides played major roles in the successful attack & disappearance of the confederate submarine

IN MAY 1811, thirteen months before the outbreak of the War of 1812, the American frigate President (commanded by Commodore John Rodgers) engaged the British sloop-of-war Little Belt (commanded by Commander Arthur Bingham) in a short, bloody battle approximately fifty miles off the North Carolina coast.

Redeemed honor: the President-Little Belt Affair and the coming of the war of 1812

Naval songs on the album are "The Fight of the Hatteras and Alabama"; "The Jamestown Homeward Bound"; "Farragut's Ball"; "The Florida's Cruise"; "The Old Virginia Lowlands, Low"; "The Blockade Runner"; "The Bold Privateer"; "A Yankee Man-of-War"; "The Sailor's Grave"; "The Brooklyn, Sloop-of-War"; "The Alabama"; "The Fate of the Pirate Alabama"; "The Monitor & Merrimac." Well-performed by a trio of singers and a bounty of talented musicians, the album will enhance anyone's understanding of the experiences of naval combat during the Civil War.

Civil War Naval Songs: Period Ballads from the Union and Confederate Navies, and the Home front