destroyer

1. 1.

   a small fast lightly armored but heavily armed warship

   Synonymsguided missile destroyer

   Broaderwarship

   Narrowertin cantorpedo-boat destroyerUSS Cole
2. 2.

   a person who destroys or ruins or lays waste to

   “a destroyer of the environment”

   “jealousy was his undoer”

   “uprooters of gravestones”

   Synonymsruinerundoerwasteruprooter

   Broaderbad person

   Narrowerannihilatoriconoclastsaboteurvandal

Other forms of destroyer

plural

destroyers·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about destroyer

What does destroyer mean?

destroyer means "a small fast lightly armored but heavily armed warship". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in destroyer?

destroyer has 3 syllables: de-stro-yer. The stress falls on "stro". In IPA it is /dɪˈstɹɔɪɚ/.

What is another word for destroyer?

Close synonyms include guided missile destroyer, ruiner, undoer, waster, uprooter. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is destroyer a common word?

destroyer is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.