fleet
noun
- formation of warships
- collection of vessels in service
- the totality of an organization's vehicles
verb
No English definition recorded for this entry.
L23137 on Wikidata ↗adjective
No English definition recorded for this entry.
L23138 on Wikidata ↗Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /ˈfliːt/ / [ˈflɪi̯t] / /fliːt/
adj
Etymology: From Middle English fleten (“float”), from Old English flēotan (“float”), from Proto-West Germanic *fleutan, from Proto-Germanic *fleutaną.
- Swift in motion; light and quick in going from place to place.
“In mail their horses clad, yet fleet and strong.”
“[…]it was not till the afternoon that they came out on the high-road, their first high-road; and there disaster, fleet and unforeseen, sprang out on them — disaster momentous indeed to their expedition[…]”
- Light; superficially thin; not penetrating deep, as soil.
“fleet Soil, and that 'tis mixed with a great quantity of Earth, Marle, Mud or Clay, &c.”
name
Etymology: From fleet (“stream, estuary”).
- A river (the River Fleet) in London, England, now buried underground, that flowed under the Eastern end of the present Fleet Street.
“This is hard-core London, and just before Farringdon station you will be able to glimpse the vast steel pipe that carries what was the Fleet River and is now the Fleet sewer over your head. The Fleet looks safely contained now, although you never know. It surprises me that no terrorist has made common cause with the surly and embittered Fleet, which, in Peter Ackroyd's words became 'a river of death' as it sidled through the meanest streets of London en route to the Thames.”
- A former prison (the Fleet Prison) in London, which originally stood near the stream.
- A river, the Water of Fleet, in Dumfries and Galloway council area, Scotland.
- A river in Highland council area, Scotland, which flows into Loch Fleet.
- A town and civil parish with a town council in Hart district, Hampshire, England (OS grid ref SU8054).
- A village and civil parish in South Holland district, Lincolnshire, England (OS grid ref TF3823).
- A hamlet in Alberta, Canada.
- A surname.
noun
Etymology: See flet.
- Obsolete form of flet (“house, floor, large room”).
“Fire and fleet and candle-lighte”
verb
Etymology: From Middle English fleten (“float”), from Old English flēotan (“float”), from Proto-West Germanic *fleutan, from Proto-Germanic *fleutaną.
- To float.
“Legions of Spirits fleeting in the aire, Direct our Bullets and our weapons pointes […]”
“Antony: Our force by land / Hath nobly held; our sever'd navy too, / Have knit again, and fleet, threat'ning most sea-like.”
- To pass over rapidly; to skim the surface of.
“Long were to tell the troublous stormes, that tosse The private state, and make the life unsweet Who swelling sayles in Caspian sea doth crosse, And in frayle wood on Adrian gulf doth fleet”
- To hasten over; to cause to pass away lightly, or in mirth and joy.
“They say he is already in the Forest of Arden, and a many merry men with him; and there they live like the old Robin Hood of England. They say many young gentlemen flock to him every day and fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the golden world.”
“And so through this dark world they fleet / Divided, till in death they meet.”
- To flee, to escape, to speed away.
“Gratiano:O, be thou damn'd, inexecrable dog! And for thy life let justice be accused. Thou almost makest me waver in my faith, To hold opinion with Pythagoras, That souls of animals infuse themselves Into the trunks of men: thy currish spirit Govern'd a wolf, who, hang'd for human slaughter, Even from the gallows did his fell soul fleet, And, whilst thou lay'st in thy unhallow'd dam, Infused itself in thee; for thy desires Are wolfish, bloody, starved, and ravenous.”
“It began to be chill; the tide was rapidly fleeting seaward, the schooner settling more and more on her beam-ends.”
- To evanesce, disappear, die out.
“Portia:How all other passions fleet to air, As doubtful thoughts, and rash-embraced despair, And shuddering fear, and green-eyed jealousy! O love, be moderate; allay thy ecstasy; In measure rain thy joy; scant this excess! I feel too much thy blessing; make it less, For fear I surfeit!”
- To move up a rope, so as to haul to more advantage; especially to draw apart the blocks of a tackle.
“To fleet tackle when pennant block is used, the keeper, with a strap and heaver, racks both parts of hawser together near pennant block, and the tackle is then overhauled and hooked by the men assigned to those duties.”
- To move or change in position.
“We got the long "stick" [...] down and "fleeted" aft, where it was secured.”
- To shift the position of dead-eyes when the shrouds are become too long.
- To cause to slip down the barrel of a capstan or windlass, as a rope or chain.
- To take the cream from; to skim.