man-of-war

1. 1.

   a warship intended for combat

   Synonymsship of the line

   Broaderwarship

   Narrowersailing warship
2. 2.

   large siphonophore having a bladderlike float and stinging tentacles

   SynonymsPortuguese man-of-warjellyfish

   Broadersiphonophore

   Part ofPhysalia

Questions about man-of-war

What does man-of-war mean?

man-of-war means "a warship intended for combat". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in man-of-war?

man-of-war has 3 syllables: ma-n-of--war. The stress falls on "ma".

What is another word for man-of-war?

Close synonyms include ship of the line, Portuguese man-of-war, jellyfish. 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 man-of-war a common word?

man-of-war is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.