Broadside
adv, noun, verb ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 One side of a ship above the waterline.
- 2 the simultaneous firing of all the armament on one side of a warship wordnet
- 3 All the guns on one side of a warship.
- 4 the whole side of a vessel from stem to stern wordnet
- 5 The simultaneous firing of these guns.
"Broadside! What fools to face our guns!"
Show 6 more definitions
- 6 all of the armament that is fired from one side of a warship wordnet
- 7 A forceful attack, whether written or spoken. broadly
"Although slaveholders managed - through a combination of political compromise and ideological broadside - to contain the threat of a major anti-slavery compaign by fellow Southerners, planters could never be totally sure of non-slaveholders' loyalty to the social order."
- 8 a speech of violent denunciation wordnet
- 9 A large sheet of paper, printed on one side and folded.
- 10 an advertisement (usually printed on a page or in a leaflet) intended for wide distribution wordnet
- 11 The printed lyrics of a folk song or ballad; a broadsheet.
- 1 To collide with something side-on. transitive
- 2 collide with the broad side of wordnet
- 1 toward a full side wordnet
- 1 Sideways; with the side turned to the direction of some object. not-comparable
"[...] the slight fluctuations [in speed] were due to a strong side-wind, which caught the train broadside along exposed stretches of the line."
- 1 with a side facing an object wordnet
Example
More examples"The shattered oars start forth; / round swings the prow, and lets the waters sweep / the broadside. Onward comes a mountain heap / of billows, gaunt, abrupt."
Etymology
From broad + side.
Related phrases
More for "broadside"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.