Dictionary

rocket ship en · NOUN

Etymology

From 1809.

Meanings

1. A spacecraft propelled by a rocket engine.
   • In a Gallup poll conducted near the start of 1955, just 9% said they’d like to go along on the first rocket ship to the moon if asked, and two years later, just 5% said they’d volunteer to be the first one up in a spacecraft. 2026 April 9, Ariel Edwards-Levy, “Would you go to the moon? Board an alien spacecraft? What nearly 80 years of polls say about US attitudes on space”, in CNN, archived from the original on 11 Apr 2026:
2. A ship armed with rockets.
   • And there was a further group, including Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–80), who had been a POW in Germany, and William Golding (1911–93), who had commanded a Royal Navy rocket ship, who were propelled by the ordeals of war to examine the complexities of human nature and human society. 2006, Norman Davies, No simple victory: World War II in Europe, 1939–1945, New York: Penguin, page 447:
   • At about 3 P.M., the four bomb-vessels and rocket-ship weighed, and stood further in; the latter, to give effect to her rockets, much nearer than the others. 1837, William James, The Naval History of Great Britain, From the Declaration of War by France in 1793, to the Accession of George IV, volume 6, London: Richard Bentley, page 320:

Forms