Word.ws English Dictionary

tanker

Syllables: tan·kerUK/ˈtæŋkə/US/ˈtæŋkɚ/

tanker noun: a tankship, a vessel used to transport large quantities of fluid.

tanker: a tankship, a vessel used to transport large quantities of fluid
Image: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

tanker (plural tankers)

  1. A tankship, a vessel used to transport large quantities of fluid.
    • The channel at Chan-chiang is being dredged to a depth of 50 feet enabling tankers of 70,000 tons to call.1976 March, JeNelle Matheson, Construction Equipment A Market Assessment for the People's Republic of China, U.S. Department of Commerce, →OCLC, page 8
  2. (UK, US) A motor truck (lorry) with a tank to hold bulk liquid (with or without internal baffles): a fuel tanker (lorry), petrol tanker, road tanker.
    • Nor is the government facing a strike by tanker drivers, as was the case in early 1979 during the winter of discontent.2021 September 23, Larry Elliott, “Petrol disruption will fuel fears of new winter of discontent”, in The Guardian
  3. (usually) An aircraft carrying a large supply of jet fuel or avgas for aerial refueling of other aircraft, plus equipment allowing the in-air transfer of fuel.
    • Without the KC-46 tankers orbiting in friendly airspace, our fighters would've run out of fuel long before reaching the combat zone.
    • On Friday night, eight US Air Force KC-135 Stratotankers took off from Altus, Oklahoma, according to data from FlightRadar24. Over Kansas the tankers refueled two groups of planes, identified on air traffic control audio by their callsigns MYTEE11 FLT and MYTEE21 FLT. The callsign MYTEE has...2025 June 21, Thomas Bordeaux, Natasha Bertrand and Zachary Cohen, “US moves B-2 bombers as Trump weighs Iran options”, in CNN
  4. An aircraft built or modified to carry water and/or fire retardant for dropping on wildfires.
    • While our ground teams cut firebreaks in the brush, the tankers kept the fire in the mountains at bay with frequent drops of water and retardant.
  5. A tank car (tank wagon).
  6. Member of a tank crew, or of an armoured unit.
    • On February 19, 1943, American tankers felt the full wrath of the German Army in North Africa when its tank-led spearhead punched a 2-mile-wide hole through American lines at Faid Pass in Tunisia, […]2014, Michael Green, American Tanks & AFVs of World War II, Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN, page 70
    Synonyms:
    tankist, zipperhead
  7. An airman who serves on the crew of an aerial refueling tanker aircraft.
  8. (slang) A longboard.
    • I swung the tanker around just in time to take off with the lip.

Verb

tanker (third-person singular simple present tankers, present participle tankering, simple past and past participle tankered)

  1. (transitive) To transport (oil, etc.) in a tanker.
  2. To carry more fuel than necessary for a flight, in order to avoid having to refuel at a destination where fuel is more expensive or in short supply.

tanker meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Kannada

tanker in Hindi

vessel
टैंकर ṭaiṅkar

tanker in Tamil

எண்ணெய் ஏற்றிச் செல்லும் கப்பல், நீர்மக்கலன், நீர்மம், எண்ணெய், ஒயின், வானுர்தியாகவோ சரக்குந்தாகவோ இருக்கலாம்

tanker in Urdu

تیل بردار جہاز

tanker in Kannada

ಎಣ್ಣೆಹಡಗು
More languagesFewer languages
tanker in Tagalog
tangkista
tanker in Arabic
نَاقِلة nāqila

Examples of tanker in a sentence

  • The tanker is 25 years old but she is still very seaworthy.
  • They pirated the tanker and sailed to a port where they could sell the ship and cargo.
  • Tanker trucks use baffles to keep the liquids inside from sloshing around.

All 30 example sentences with tanker

Synonyms of tanker

All synonyms of tanker

Forms of tanker

Noun
pluraltankers
Verb
third-person singular presenttankers
present participletankering
past participletankered
pasttankered

Plural of tanker: tankers

Origin of tanker

From tank + -er.

Words formed from tanker

Phrases with tanker

Words that rhyme with tanker

6 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about tanker

What does tanker mean?
Tanker means a tankship, a vessel used to transport large quantities of fluid.
What is tanker in Hindi?
Tanker in Hindi is टैंकर (ṭaiṅkar). See Tanker meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is tanker?
Tanker can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce tanker?
Tanker is pronounced /ˈtæŋkə/ (UK).
What is the plural of tanker?
The plural of tanker is tankers.

Words near tanker in the dictionary

  1. tankdozers
  2. tankdrome
  3. tankdromes
  4. tanked
  5. tanked up
  6. tanker
  7. tanker ace
  8. tanker aircraft
  9. tanker boot
  10. tanker boots
  11. tanker truck

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tanker (page history and authors); tanker (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); tanker (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); tanker (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-tanker.ogg.

Cite this entry: “tanker.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tanker. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.