"fleet in being" meaning in English

See fleet in being in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: fleets in being [plural]
Etymology: First used in 1690 by British Admiral Arthur Herbert, 1st Earl of Torrington, in defending his strategy of keeping his fleet in port until reinforcements arrived, rather than engaging with the superior French force. Head templates: {{en-noun|fleets in being}} fleet in being (plural fleets in being)
  1. (military, navy, countable) A naval fleet which exerts an influence while remaining in port. Wikipedia link: fleet in being Tags: countable Categories (topical): Military Synonyms: fleet-in-being Translations (naval fleet): עֶצֶם קִיוּם הַצִי (Hebrew), flota en potencia [feminine] (Spanish)
    Sense id: en-fleet_in_being-en-noun-LiHFHMWV Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Topics: government, military, navy, politics, war

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for fleet in being meaning in English (2.9kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "First used in 1690 by British Admiral Arthur Herbert, 1st Earl of Torrington, in defending his strategy of keeping his fleet in port until reinforcements arrived, rather than engaging with the superior French force.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "fleets in being",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "fleets in being"
      },
      "expansion": "fleet in being (plural fleets in being)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Military",
          "orig": "en:Military",
          "parents": [
            "Society",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1895, John Murray (publisher), The Quarterly Review, volume 182, page 6",
          "text": "In point of fact command of the sea and a fleet in being are mutually exclusive terms.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1994, Colin S. Gray, The Navy in the Post-Cold War World: The Uses and Value of Strategic Sea Power, page 85",
          "text": "But even for that navy, with its strong tradition of offensive action, there were occasions when the fleet-in-being strategy was prudent and effective.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2006, John J. Klein, Space Warfare: Strategy, Principles, and Policy, page 122",
          "text": "Lines of communication in space, on the other hand, move physical elements, but they are also used to move non-physical elements as well, such as data and information. Consequently, the space equivalent to \"fleet in being\" should recognize this fundamental difference. […] Whereas the naval fleet in being strategy uses ships to dispute command of the sea, a space strategy employing a force in being may use physical assets as well as non-physical means.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007, James B. Wood, Japanese Military Strategy in the Pacific War: Was Defeat Inevitable?, page 81",
          "text": "It should instead have been saved as a reserve force, a fleet in being, as long as possible, and then committed in a Riskflotte operation at a key juncture, striking a decisive blow even if it involved its sacrifice.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A naval fleet which exerts an influence while remaining in port."
      ],
      "id": "en-fleet_in_being-en-noun-LiHFHMWV",
      "links": [
        [
          "military",
          "military"
        ],
        [
          "fleet",
          "fleet"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(military, navy, countable) A naval fleet which exerts an influence while remaining in port."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "fleet-in-being"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "countable"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "government",
        "military",
        "navy",
        "politics",
        "war"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "he",
          "lang": "Hebrew",
          "sense": "naval fleet",
          "word": "עֶצֶם קִיוּם הַצִי"
        },
        {
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "naval fleet",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "flota en potencia"
        }
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "fleet in being"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "fleet in being"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "First used in 1690 by British Admiral Arthur Herbert, 1st Earl of Torrington, in defending his strategy of keeping his fleet in port until reinforcements arrived, rather than engaging with the superior French force.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "fleets in being",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "fleets in being"
      },
      "expansion": "fleet in being (plural fleets in being)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned",
        "en:Military"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1895, John Murray (publisher), The Quarterly Review, volume 182, page 6",
          "text": "In point of fact command of the sea and a fleet in being are mutually exclusive terms.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1994, Colin S. Gray, The Navy in the Post-Cold War World: The Uses and Value of Strategic Sea Power, page 85",
          "text": "But even for that navy, with its strong tradition of offensive action, there were occasions when the fleet-in-being strategy was prudent and effective.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2006, John J. Klein, Space Warfare: Strategy, Principles, and Policy, page 122",
          "text": "Lines of communication in space, on the other hand, move physical elements, but they are also used to move non-physical elements as well, such as data and information. Consequently, the space equivalent to \"fleet in being\" should recognize this fundamental difference. […] Whereas the naval fleet in being strategy uses ships to dispute command of the sea, a space strategy employing a force in being may use physical assets as well as non-physical means.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007, James B. Wood, Japanese Military Strategy in the Pacific War: Was Defeat Inevitable?, page 81",
          "text": "It should instead have been saved as a reserve force, a fleet in being, as long as possible, and then committed in a Riskflotte operation at a key juncture, striking a decisive blow even if it involved its sacrifice.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A naval fleet which exerts an influence while remaining in port."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "military",
          "military"
        ],
        [
          "fleet",
          "fleet"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(military, navy, countable) A naval fleet which exerts an influence while remaining in port."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "countable"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "government",
        "military",
        "navy",
        "politics",
        "war"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "fleet in being"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "fleet-in-being"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "he",
      "lang": "Hebrew",
      "sense": "naval fleet",
      "word": "עֶצֶם קִיוּם הַצִי"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "naval fleet",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "flota en potencia"
    }
  ],
  "word": "fleet in being"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.