Word.ws English Dictionary

brown-water navy

brown-water navy noun: a naval force capable of military operations in riverine and coastal environments.

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.

Forms of brown-water navy

pluralbrown-water navies

Questions about brown-water navy

What does brown-water navy mean?
Brown-water navy means a naval force capable of military operations in riverine and coastal environments.
What part of speech is brown-water navy?
Brown-water navy is a noun.
What is the plural of brown-water navy?
The plural of brown-water navy is brown-water navies.

Words near brown-water navy in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: 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.

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