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Fleet   /flit/   Listen
noun
Fleet  n.  A number of vessels in company, especially war vessels; also, the collective naval force of a country, etc.
Fleet captain, the senior aid of the admiral of a fleet, when a captain.



Fleet  n.  
1.
A flood; a creek or inlet; a bay or estuary; a river; obsolete, except as a place name, as Fleet Street in London. "Together wove we nets to entrap the fish In floods and sedgy fleets."
2.
A former prison in London, which originally stood near a stream, the Fleet (now filled up).
Fleet parson, a clergyman of low character, in, or in the vicinity of, the Fleet prison, who was ready to unite persons in marriage (called Fleet marriage) at any hour, without public notice, witnesses, or consent of parents.



adjective
Fleet  adj.  (compar. fleeter; superl. fleetest)  
1.
Swift in motion; moving with velocity; light and quick in going from place to place; nimble. "In mail their horses clad, yet fleet and strong."
2.
Light; superficially thin; not penetrating deep, as soil. (Prov. Eng.)



verb
Fleet  v. t.  
1.
To pass over rapidly; to skin the surface of; as, a ship that fleets the gulf.
2.
To hasten over; to cause to pass away lighty, or in mirth and joy. "Many young gentlemen flock to him, and fleet the time carelessly."
3.
(Naut.)
(a)
To draw apart the blocks of; said of a tackle.
(b)
To cause to slip down the barrel of a capstan or windlass, as a rope or chain.
4.
(Naut.) To move or change in position; used only in special phrases; as, of fleet aft the crew. "We got the long "stick"... down and "fleeted" aft, where it was secured."



Fleet  v. t.  To take the cream from; to skim. (Prov. Eng.)



fleet  v. i.  (past & past part. fleeted; pres. part. fleeting)  
1.
To sail; to float. (Obs.) "And in frail wood on Adrian Gulf doth fleet."
2.
To fly swiftly; to pass over quickly; to hasten; to flit as a light substance. "All the unaccomplished works of Nature's hand,... Dissolved on earth, fleet hither."
3.
(Naut.) To slip on the whelps or the barrel of a capstan or windlass; said of a cable or hawser.
4.
(Naut.) To move or change in position; said of persons; as, the crew fleeted aft.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Fleet" Quotes from Famous Books



... herself,—and for so long a period was she secure against herself. But the very rapidity and decisiveness of her triumphs over the barbarian cut this period short, and cut short also the rising column of Hellenic power. At the same time that Cimon is finishing up the fleet of Persia, Pericles is preparing for the culmination of Greece. In all this there seemed nothing final; from the serenity of the Grecian sky, and from the summer silence which inwrapt her statues and Pentelic ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various

... dispatched by the Virginia Company of London, included supplies and no less than 145 persons of whom 104 or 105 (depending on which of the more detailed contemporary accounts is accepted) were to remain in Virginia as the first settlers. The fleet left England late in 1606. It moved down the Thames River from London on December 20 and, after a slow start, the ships proceeded over the long route through the West Indies. Captain Newport was in command, and ...
— The First Seventeen Years: Virginia 1607-1624 • Charles E. Hatch

... stealing away; but yonder they go before the wind, down the sweeping, outstretched glen, like smoke in a blast. Ay, there they go, two stag hounds, monkey, and grew, and Toby yelping behind; what a view we have of them—the grew is too fleet for him, he turns him and keeps him at bay till the hounds come up; now they are off again, and now we lose them, vanished like the shadow of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, No. - 537, March 10, 1832 • Various

... paused and looked up and down the rapids rushing down the slope in all their wild variety, with the white crests of breaking surf, the dark massiveness of heavy-climbing waves, the fleet, smooth sweep of currents over broad shelves of sunken rock, the dizzy ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... rang with the glad tidings. Fleet-footed runners, who had started with this precious news on the day of victory, covered more than one hundred and fifty miles to bring it to the capital of the ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman


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