gunboat
/ˈɡʌnˌboʊt/noun
gunboat is a noun meaning “Any of the various types of small armed vessels” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled G-U-N-B-O-A-T and has 2 syllables, and it appears about once in every 3 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of gunboat is gunboats.
What does gunboat mean?
noun
- 1
Any of the various types of small armed vessels.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce gunboat?
- US /ˈɡʌnˌboʊt/
Gunboat has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-gunboat.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of gunboat
- gunboats plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is gunboat?
Gunboat appears about once in every 3 million words in written English, the 55,433rd most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Words people confuse with gunboat
Also written: gun boat (one word or two).
Sources: English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
Gunboat in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense small armed vessel:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | canonnière |
| German | Kanonenboot |
| Portuguese | canhoneira |
| Spanish | cañonera, cañonero |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does gunboat come from?
From gun + boat.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).