Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A Portuguese man-of-war.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun An armed ship; a publicly recognized vessel fitted for engaging in battle; a ship of war.
- noun In coal-mining, one of the small pillars left to support the roof of the chambers (or sides of work, as they are called locally) in working the “tenyard coal” in Staffordshire, England.
- noun One of the jägers or skuas: a wrong use.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A government vessel employed for the purposes of war, esp. one of large size; a ship of war.
- noun The Portuguese man-of-war.
- noun (Zoöl.) the frigate bird.
- noun a sailor serving in a ship of war.
- noun (Zoöl.) any species of the genus Physalia; it is a hydrozoan having both medusa and polyp stages present in a single colony. It floats on the surface of the sea by a buoyant bladderlike structure, from which dangle multiple long tentacles with stinging cells. Its can cause severe rashes when it comes in contact with humans swimming in the area. See
Physalia .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun An
armed naval vessel , primarily one armed withcannon and propelled bysails . - noun The
Portuguese man-of-war , ajellyfish -like marinecnidarian of the family Physaliidae.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a warship intended for combat
- noun large siphonophore having a bladderlike float and stinging tentacles
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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Then came the man-of-war that threw shells for miles into the hills, frightening the people out of their villages and into the deeper bush.
MAUKI 2010
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As it was, the murder of the white men, of any white man, would bring a man-of-war that would kill the offenders and chop down the precious cocoanut trees.
MAUKI 2010
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His mention at the bottom of page 19 of sailors immediately made me think of the degree of specialization in an 18th or 19th century man-of-war, compared to the very little division of labor in, for example, a trireme or a proa.
A Bland and Deadly Courtesy skzbrust 2009
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Then, one day, the fog lifted on the edge of a heavy wind, and there jammed down upon us a schooner, with close in her wake the cloudy funnels of a Russian man-of-war.
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So Longinus constructs his metaphor of Euripedes the man-of-words as Euripedes the man-of-war.
On the Sublime Hal Duncan 2010
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His mention at the bottom of page 19 of sailors immediately made me think of the degree of specialization in an 18th or 19th century man-of-war, compared to the very little division of labor in, for example, a trireme or a proa.
A Bland and Deadly Courtesy skzbrust 2009
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Then, one day, the fog lifted on the edge of a heavy wind, and there jammed down upon us a schooner, with close in her wake the cloudy funnels of a Russian man-of-war.
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Killing American sailors on the USS Cole in the port of Aden was praiseworthy since no modern Muslim power had ever so humbled an American man-of-war.
The Slaughter That Muslims Could Not Ignore Reuel Marc Gerecht 2011
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Another marine example is the Portuguese man-of-war, which can measure more than 150 feet from its air bladder to the tips of its tentacles.
SuperCooperators Martin A. Nowak 2011
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Partly it is this notion of the sublime returning to the domestic to shatter it, as in that moment when Odysseus reveals himself, less a man-of-war as he fires his arrows out into the crowd of suitors, more a terrorist or an exile returned, as Dionysus in Thebes.
On the Sublime Hal Duncan 2010
chained_bear commented on the word man-of-war
Alternate spellings include man-o-war and man o' war.
February 21, 2007
reesetee commented on the word man-of-war
I've always favored man-o-war myself.
February 21, 2007
chained_bear commented on the word man-of-war
Man-o-war is listed on my "Pets I Have Known" list. She was a sweet little gerbil.
February 21, 2007
reesetee commented on the word man-of-war
Hence the utterly endearing name for her. ;-)
February 21, 2007
chained_bear commented on the word man-of-war
She used to fling herself bodily at the top of the cage and cling to the screen bars. Then fall. She never hurt herself, but sometimes she fell on her cage-mate, who would glare at her.
February 21, 2007
reesetee commented on the word man-of-war
Well, I don't know about you, but if *my* housemate fell from the ceiling onto me, I daresay I'd glare at her too.
Good for Man-o-war. Never give up. :-)
February 21, 2007