spaceship

Noun

spaceship (plural spaceships)

1. A manned vehicle that flies through space.

   Synonyms:

   spacecraft

2. A finite pattern that reappears after a certain number of generations in the same orientation but in a different position.
   • The spaceships look like a row of threshers harvesting a field of wheat; the thickness in the direction of motion is only about 10 cells.1989 October 26, Richard Schroeppel, “Some recent Life results”, in comp.theory.cell-automata (Usenet)
   • We describe software that searches for spaceships in Conway's Game of Life and related two-dimensional cellular automata.2002, Richard Nowakowski, More Games of No Chance, page 433
3. The operator <=> in certain programming languages, which compares two values and indicates whether the first is lesser than, greater than, or equal to the second.
   • If we reverse the positions of $a and $b, the spaceship will sort in the opposite order[…]2012, Randal Schwartz, Brian Foy, Tom Phoenix, Intermediate Perl, page 142
4. (slang) A computer.