Blockship

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A vessel that is deliberately sunk in order to block a waterway (to prevent it being used by an enemy)

    "[…] the veteran paddle-steamer Gondolier was sunk as a blockship at Scapa Flow; […]."

Example

More examples

"[…] the veteran paddle-steamer Gondolier was sunk as a blockship at Scapa Flow; […]."

Etymology

From block + ship.

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