noun, slang ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   Any German submarine of the First or Second World War, or any Austro-Hungarian submarine of the First World War. historical
2. 2
   military submarine operated by Germany during the First and Second World Wars wordnet
3. 3
   A narrow utility cart with tall handles on both ends that is used to carry loads of retail products to be sold, so named because its shape is roughly that of a capital U.
4. 4
   Nickname given to the General Electric Universal Series diesel-electric locomotives. slang

Synonyms

All synonyms

subsubmarinesubmarine

Example

More examples

"The RMS Lusitania was sunk by a German U-boat in 1915."

Etymology

Calque of German U-Boot.

Related phrases

U-boat ace

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.