Word.ws English Dictionary

brown-water navies

brown-water navies is the plural of brown-water navy.

Meaning of brown-water navy

Noun

brown-water navy (plural brown-water navies)

  1. (broadly) A naval force capable of military operations in riverine and coastal environments.
    • Gunboats and other vessels with shallow drafts that could navigate inland waterways were part of the Civil War's brown-water navies.2005, Clifford L. Linedecker, Civil War, A to Z: The Complete Handbook of America's Bloodiest Conflict, page 57
  2. (strictly) A naval force capable of military operations only in inland waters.
  3. The portion of a naval force that is optimized for riverine operations.

Questions about brown-water navies

What is brown-water navies the plural of?
Brown-water navies is the plural of brown-water navy.

Words near brown-water navies in the dictionary

  1. brown-tail moth
  2. brown-tail moths
  3. brown-tailed rock chat
  4. brown-tailed rock chats
  5. Brown-Vialetto-Van Laere syndrome
  6. brown-water navies
  7. brown-water navy
  8. brownable
  9. brownback
  10. brownbacks
  11. brownbagger

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: brown-water navies (page history and authors); brown-water navy (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “brown-water navies.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/brown-water_navies. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.