Word.ws English Dictionary

fifth rate

fifth rate is the alternative spelling of fifth-rate.

Meaning of fifth-rate

Adjective

fifth-rate (not comparable)

  1. (UK, historical) Of a Royal Navy warship in the Napoleonic Era: having 32–44 guns across one or two gun decks, a complement of 200–300, and weighing 700–1,450 tons burthen.
    • [A] great and ſtout Fleet before the Texel (and not as much as one of our Fourth or Fifth Rate-Frigats could follow them)[.]1677, Andrew Yarranton, England's improvement by sea and land, London: R. Everingham, page 96
  2. (idiomatic, uncommon) Terrible, awful; less than fourth-rate.

See all 3 meanings of fifth-rate

Forms of fifth rate

pluralfifth rates

Questions about fifth rate

What is fifth rate the alternative spelling of?
Fifth rate is the alternative spelling of fifth-rate.

Words near fifth rate in the dictionary

  1. fifth nerves
  2. fifth normal form
  3. fifth position
  4. fifth quarter
  5. fifth quarters
  6. fifth rate
  7. fifth rates
  8. Fifth Republic
  9. fifth slip
  10. fifth slips
  11. Fifth Sun

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fifth rate (page history and authors); fifth-rate (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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