Word.ws English Dictionary

fourth rate

fourth rate is the alternative spelling of fourth-rate.

Meaning of fourth-rate

Adjective

fourth-rate (not comparable)

  1. (UK, historical) Of a Royal Navy ship of the line in the Napoleonic Era: having 50–60 guns across two gun decks, a complement of 320–420, and weighing approximately 1,000 tons burthen.
  2. (idiomatic, uncommon) Terrible, awful; less than third-rate.

See all 3 meanings of fourth-rate

Forms of fourth rate

pluralfourth rates

Questions about fourth rate

What is fourth rate the alternative spelling of?
Fourth rate is the alternative spelling of fourth-rate.

Words near fourth rate in the dictionary

  1. fourth point of contact
  2. fourth points of contact
  3. fourth position
  4. fourth rail
  5. fourth rails
  6. fourth rate
  7. fourth rates
  8. Fourth Reich
  9. Fourth Republic
  10. Fourth Siding
  11. fourth slip

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fourth rate (page history and authors); fourth-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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Cite this entry: “fourth rate.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/fourth_rate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.