Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use gunboat in a sentence

15 example sentences · noun

Gunboat means any of the various types of small armed vessels. Example: “Nothing beats a gunboat.”

Examples of gunboat by meaning

nounAny of the various types of small armed vessels.

  • Nothing beats a gunboat.2013 August 14, Simon Jenkins, “Gibraltar and the Falklands deny the logic of history”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 22...
  • With huge boats (with guns); gunboats.2016 February 2, Bill Wurtz, 4:45 from the start, in history of japan

More sentences with gunboat

  • A timberclad warship is a kind of mid 19th century river gunboat.2025 March 12, Wikipedia contributors, “Timberclad warship”, in English Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation. From the entry timberclad
  • And when it comes to a gunboat, you've got some very good people here.2012, Barbara Cleverly, The Damascened Blade. From the entry rattle a sabre
  • Three timberclad gunboats also joined the federal flotilla as escorts for the troop transports.2001, Louis S. Gerteis, Civil War St. Louis, illustrated edition, University Press of Kansas, page 243. From the entry timberclad
  • The Chinese Communist motor junk was destroyed and the gunboats were damaged.1951 June 22, “Chinese Communist Military Activities, East China”, in CIA, page 3. From the entry matsu
  • 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. From the entry brown-water navy
  • According to the South Korean joint chiefs of staff, a North Korean gunboat ventured about a mile into what Seoul claims is its territorial waters.2009 November 10, Bill Powell, “Before Obama's Visit, a New Clash Between Koreas”, in Time. From the entry territorial waters
  • Christian missions came into the picture simply because he found them arrayed always and everywhere alongside Western gunboats, diplomatic pressures, extraterritorial rights and plain gangsterism.1998, Sita Ram Goel, Niyogi Committee Report on Christian Missionary Activities. From the entry extraterritorial
  • The British and French, who had sought to make policy by reviving 19th century gunboat diplomacy, had temporarily lost their credentials for world statesmanship.1956 Dec. 3, Acclaim & Misgivings, Time. From the entry gunboat diplomacy
  • Gunboats of the Nanking Navy had been concentrated in the Yangtze and had proceeded up-river until they were within ten miles of Hankow.1937, Hollington K. Tong, Chiang Kai-shek: Soldier And Statesman, volume 1, London: Hurst & Blackett, →OCLC, page 262. From the entry Hwangchow
  • This was finally effected by yawlsmen from the gunboats who were expert in shooting the rapids, and after several attempts succeeded in getting both off safely, but nearly exhausted.2016, Charles A. Willison, A Boy's Service Under Sherman in the Civil War. From the entry yawlsman
  • Around them all, Negroes carried gunboats of mashed potatoes, spinach, shrimp, zucchini, pot roast, to the long, glittering steam tables, preparing to feed a noontide invasion of Yoyodyne workers.1966 March, Thomas Pynchon, chapter 4, in The Crying of Lot 49, New York, N.Y.: Bantam Books, published November 1976, →ISBN, page 59. From the entry noontide
  • First reports were that the Reds, in five gunboats and swarms of junks, succeeded in landing on tiny Wuchiu in Formosa Strait, but were beaten off with many captured.1954 November 27, “Red Assault on Tiny Isle Beaten Off, Say Nationalists”, in The Daily Colonist, volume 96, number 294, Victoria, British…. From the entry beat off
  • Ito sent his gunboats up the Ta-tung to co-operate with Nodzu, and leaving his torpedo boats at the river mouth, went to sea with his fleet.1911, John Richard Hale, “The Battle of Yalu 1894”, in Famous Sea Fights from Salamis to Tsu-shima, 2nd edition, London: Methuen & Co.…. From the entry co-operate

Meaning of gunboat

  1. noun Any of the various types of small armed vessels.

Full definition of gunboat

Questions about gunboat in a sentence

How do you use gunboat in a sentence?
Gunboat is used as a noun. For example: “Nothing beats a gunboat.”
What is a short sentence with gunboat?
“Nothing beats a gunboat.”
What does gunboat mean?
Gunboat means any of the various types of small armed vessels.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gunboat (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use gunboat in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/gunboat. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.