Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Ironclad   Listen
adjective
Ironclad  adj.  
1.
Having an outer covering of iron or steel; as, an ironclad war vessel.
2.
So strong or secure as to be unbreakable; as, an ironclad contract.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Ironclad" Quotes from Famous Books



... wasn't such a very ironclad engagement as all that, Alice. They said they were going to drive out to Cambridge over the Milldam, and I said I was going out there to get some of my traps together, and they could pick me up at the Art Museum if they liked. Besides, how ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... afloat was in the Louisiana, an ironclad, carrying nine rifles and seven smooth bores of heavy calibre; the ram Manassas, one gun; the McRae, seven guns; the Moore and Quitman with two guns each; six river steamers with their stems shod with iron to act as rams, and several ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various

... unions so that these valuable institutions may no longer stultify themselves and wreck their own cause by their unjust and anti-social regulations as to apprentices, control of maximum output and its standard of quality, division of labour with ironclad inhibitions against one man doing another's work and against one man doing what six men can do less well, and as to the obligation to strike on order when no local or personal grievance exists. Most useful of all would be a voluntary renunciation, on the part of the purchasing public, ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram

... equipping herself with a naval force. At first, she had to purchase all her ships from foreign countries, and so difficult was it to obtain parliamentary support for these acquisitions that, as already stated, when war with the neighbouring empire broke out in 1894, she did not possess a single ironclad, her strongest vessels being four second-class cruisers, which, according to modern ideas, would not be worthy of a place ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... men of the navy buried here is Acting-Master Charles W. Howard, of the ironclad steam-frigate New Ironsides, whom Lieutentant Glassell shot during his bold attempt to blow up the New Ironsides with the torpedo steamer David, October 5, 1863. Another is Thomas Jackson, coxswain of the Wabash, the beau ideal of an American sailor, ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 1, October, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... Americans—native or adopted—to marine architecture. To an American citizen, John Ericsson, the world owes the screw propeller. Americans sent the first steamship across the ocean—the "Savannah," in 1819. Americans, engaged in a fratricidal war, invented the ironclad in the "Monitor" and the "Merrimac," and, demonstrating the value of iron ships for warfare, sounded the knell of wooden ships for peaceful trade. An American first demonstrated the commercial possibilities of the steamboat, and if history denies to Fulton entire precedence ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot

... raised like a dome, the bottom of the brig crushed in, and she had sunk instantly, the damage done to her hull being so considerable that it was impossible to refloat her. The "Speedy" had not been able to withstand a torpedo that would have destroyed an ironclad as ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne

... want to know?" asked Mrs. Marland; but chaff had about as much effect on Mr. Vansittart as it would have on an ironclad. He seemed not to hear, and awaited an answer with a bland smile. In truth, he thought Mrs. Marland a ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope

... grouped into three main divisions: (1) Mother Play, (2) Mother Stories, and (3) Child Play, with subordinate groupings under each. About 250 rhymes are included in Welsh's collection, and the arrangement suggests the best order for using them practically, without dropping into any ironclad system. ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... Argonauts Stood by to go about; Little they thought—that hero band— As they made once more for an unknown land In a world of terror and doubt, That here in the wake of the magical bough Should come the all-terrible ironclad now Serenely floating out. ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave

... given him three days' leave, Vincent was able to stay to see the close of the affair, and early next morning again rode down to Sewell's Point, as the Merrimac was to start at daybreak. At six o'clock the ironclad came out from the river and made for the Minnesota, which was still aground. The latter was seen to run up a signal, and the spectators saw an object which they had not before perceived coming out as if to meet the ram. The glasses were directed toward ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty

... the general rule of employing only soldiers as scouts, there was an occasional exception to it. I cannot say that these exceptions proved wholly that an ironclad observance of the rule would have been best, but I am sure of it in one instance. A man named Lomas, who claimed to be a Marylander, offered me his services as a spy, and coming highly recommended from Mr. Stanton, who had made use of him in that capacity, ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 4 • P. H. Sheridan

... and the Amethyst, were engaged in the only encounter at sea in which Her Majesty's ships have been engaged, (with the exception of fights with slavers) for very many years, and this conflict was the more remarkable inasmuch as their opponent was an ironclad. Peru is the land of revolution and revolt against authority. Such a rising took place in the last week of May. Pierola, the leader, had as his friends the officers of the Peruvian ironclad the Huascar, and this vessel pronouncing in his ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston

... the Aurania left New York, she was picked up on the limit of the American water by two cruisers, which would keep pace with her as well as they could until she reached the first battleship. As she passed the ironclad these two would leave her, and the next two would take up the running, and so on until she reached the range of operations of ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith

... horizon, and the sea immediately under was still and glassy, so that the neck of land seemed projected into the sky—a sort of gigantic razor-fish suspended in the silvery clouds. Then, to give the yachts time to overtake them, they steamed over to a mighty ironclad that lay at anchor there; and as they came near her vast black bulk they lowered their flag, and the band played "Rule, Britannia." The salute was returned; the officer on the high quarterdeck raised ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black

... craft had more than the forts against them. Once past the boom they were in the midst of a hostile fleet of fifteen vessels, including a dangerous ironclad ram. A fierce water-fight followed. The Union Varuna was sunk; the flag-ship Hartford set on fire by one of the fire-rafts. The flames, however, were soon put out. Other vessels were disabled. But every one of the Confederate ships was captured or destroyed, and Jackson and St. Philip had to ...
— History of the United States, Volume 4 • E. Benjamin Andrews

... subdue the boundless savagery of a continent, and win independence and form a nation besides. The demand for huge masses of the most essential of the factors of civilization has grown since, because the ironclad and the big gun have come, and those inadequate forces and crude methods supplied for a time the demand that was small and imperative. The largest mass made then, and frequently spoken of in colonial ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele

... with the white sail of some yacht or other, passing between Cowes and Spithead, or beating out into the Channel in the distance; while, in the more immediate foreground, anchored abreast of one of the harbour forts, was a modern ironclad man-of-war. ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson

... verge of destruction, and plunged so many over into the gulf, he was met by Skipper Ned Bryce, a sociable, reckless sort of man, of whom he was rather fond. Bryce was skipper of the Fairy, an iron smack, which was known in the fleet as the Ironclad. ...
— The Lively Poll - A Tale of the North Sea • R.M. Ballantyne

... armor; he grasped his arms. With the disuse of defensive armor the word has practically gone out of military use, but it is still employed in the navy, where the distinction is clearly preserved; any vessel provided with cannon is an armed vessel; an armored ship is an ironclad. Anything that can be wielded in fight may become a weapon, as a pitchfork or a paving-stone; arms are especially made and ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... morning found the six girls downstairs and seated at the breakfast table. Mr. Ashe, who made it an ironclad rule always to be in his office at half-past eight o'clock, even on holidays, had time for only a hasty good morning all around before his man announced that his car was ...
— Grace Harlowe's Fourth Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower

... when it became manifest that the glory of our "wooden walls" had set. In the prime of his intellectual and physical strength, the Emperor Louis Napoleon was a man of active and subtle brain, and it was to his ingenious invention that the first ironclad ship of war owed its birth. Floating batteries protected with iron plates were first employed during the Crimean War. It was becoming manifest that the great strides which were being made in the manufacture ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne

... distant and desolate northern regions. It may well be that the sparse population think all the coasts still belong to France, in addition to the Isles of St. Pierre and Miquelon. This is how our navy is managed. Can it be true that the Marquis of Lorne recommended that an ironclad should be sent to Montreal for a season, as an emblem of British power ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin

... accomplished gentleman, who has interested himself in many branches of natural history, besides being a good linguist. In summer the British squadron, commanded by Admiral Smart, came for five weeks to Spezia. My nephew, Henry Fairfax, was commander on board the ironclad "Resistance." Notwithstanding my age, I was so curious to see an ironclad that I went all over the "Resistance," even to the engine-room and screw-alley. I also went to luncheon on board the flagship "Victoria," a three-decker, which put me in mind ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville

... enormous force used upon them. "Superior speed will be very essential to the successful action of the ram; but by the above circumstance we may assume that even a moderate speed would enable great effects to be produced, at least on any comparatively weak point of even ironclad ships, such as ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth

... of a manufacturing company had an ironclad rule that all positions in his business were to be filled by promotion. He never hired a new employee except to start at the bottom. A competent young office man applied for a situation. He was turned down flatly. The ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins

... this improvement was not sufficient to make it worthy of reliance at this crisis. As has been said, there was money enough, and every ship-yard in the country could be set to work to build ironclad men-of-war: but it takes a long time to build ships, and England's navy was afloat. It was the British keel that America had ...
— The Great War Syndicate • Frank Stockton

... the Resistance, which have been suspended since November last, were resumed on June 9 at Portsmouth by the officers of the Vernon. The injuries received by the ironclad in the previous experiments having been repaired, so as to make the vessel watertight, the old ship was towed up the harbor, and moored in Fareham Creek. Our readers are aware that the Resistance is an obsolete ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 601, July 9, 1887 • Various

... Great Hagglenaggle Fields refuse to treat with Miners, and entrench themselves behind ironclad back gardens. They also send for a force of PATTERSON's Mercenary ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 23, 1892 • Various

... not as dangerous as it might, at first, seem. The other party to the bet is bound by the ironclad codes of Wolf to inflict no permanent physical damage (no injury that will not heal with three suncourses). But from sunrise to sunset, any torment or painful ingenuity which the half-human mentality of Wolf can ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley

... and flowers and printed verses were distributed.—Wednesday the 25th. Farewell visits. Some of the members of the Expedition travelled north by rail. Captain Palander made an excursion to Spezzia to take part in a cruise on the large ironclad Duilio. The others remained some days longer in Rome in order to see its lions, undisturbed by ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold

... The space within the ironclad shell had been made the most of, and no expense had been spared to make the cabin luxurious and ...
— The Wizard of the Sea - A Trip Under the Ocean • Roy Rockwood

... to prepare a declaration of policy, a statement based on this proposal of the Soviet Government. It was to be an ironclad declaration which we knew in advance would be accepted by the Soviet Government if we made it, and he thought that the President and Mr. Lloyd George would put ...
— The Bullitt Mission to Russia • William C. Bullitt

... This great change in 'Squimalt has not taken place in late years. The loss of the naval station lately does not seem to have made a deal of difference to its appearance. It dates back to the "wooden walls" of old England, and the appearance on the scene of the ironclad of later years. Whatever was the cause, the effect is there, and I suppose good reason could be found for the great change. Melancholy it was to me, who had seen the place full of life, jollity and laughter as bluejackets and scarlet-coated ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett

... as "an officer of the highest capacity and bravery, remarkably quiet and unassuming, and an excellent seaman. His people worshipped him, and all who knew him honoured him." In 1868 he had been given command of the Huascar, an ironclad monitor of 1130 tons displacement, 1200 horse-power, and with a nominal sea-speed of 11 knots. She was armed with two 10-inch 21-ton muzzle-loading guns (both in the same turret), two 40-pounder muzzle-loaders, one 12-pounder muzzle-loader, and one Gatling gun. This ship distinguished herself ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood

... same there. For some reason they were suspicious of the extension tables, yet they wanted nothing else. I had to give ironclad guarantees that they were as represented, which I did impatiently enough. There was a thunder storm raging at the time. The lightning had struck a tank, and the burning oil ran down a hill and set the town on fire. One ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis

... The feeling of danger from fresh discoveries affected the patriotic imagination of every people in the world. Now it was rumoured the British had an overwhelming gun, now the French an invincible rifle, now the Japanese a new explosive, now the Americans a submarine that would drive every ironclad from the seas. Each time there would ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells

... the China Sea, during the war, two little frightened birds, smaller even than our wrens, arrived, I know not how, on board our ironclad, in our Admiral's cabin, and all day long, though no one attempted to disturb them, they fluttered from side to side, perching on ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... closely packed, the walls may be only a few inches thick; if the snow is soft, the blocks are thicker, that they may hold their shape. The blocks for the bottom layer are sometimes two or three feet long and two feet high; but sometimes they are much smaller, as there is no ironclad rule ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary

... has broken our ironclad rule on this point, I want to know it. I expect to see that girl at once after prayers. Of course, if nobody here is guilty we must believe that some passer-by ventured down upon the river ...
— A Little Miss Nobody - Or, With the Girls of Pinewood Hall • Amy Bell Marlowe

... importance even for the messengers of Death to remember and to relieve from their misery. This is not rhetorical exaggeration. The weapons of offence regularly win in their race with the weapons of defence. Fortresses that took years to construct are shattered in a day. The ironclad is sunk by the torpedo. How very little margin lay between this country and starvation through action of submarines! Suppose the enemy had possessed five times as many submarines from the first, would our defensive measures have prevailed? ...
— Rebuilding Britain - A Survey Of Problems Of Reconstruction After The World War • Alfred Hopkinson

... In Logan County, Ill., alone, he has 40,000 to 45,000 acres. It is the almost universal testimony that Scully's rule in that county has reduced 250 tenants and their families to a condition approaching serfdom. Furthermore, Scully pays no taxes, the tenants signing ironclad agreements to assume the same, but they are required to pay to Scully's agents the tax money at the same time as the rentals—the 1st of January of each year; whereas, the agent need not turn over the taxes to the county treasurer until about June 10 following. It is suggested ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, February 1887 - Volume 1, Number 1 • Various

... later, without words, concentrating myself in worship. It was a need inherited from many hundreds of generations of forefathers, this need of invoking help and comfort. Nomads of the plains, Bedouins of the desert, ironclad warriors, pious priests, roving sailors, travelling merchants, the citizen of the town and the peasant in the country, all had prayed for centuries, and from the very dawn of time; the women, the hundreds and hundreds of women from whom I was descended, had centred all ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes

... with ironclad constitutional defences against illness, Mr. Henley was now and then troubled with groundless doubts of his own state of health. Acting under a delusion of this kind, he imagined symptoms which rendered a change of ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins

... of July 16, 1862, I most cordially recommend, that Commander John L. Worden, United States Navy, receive a vote of thanks of Congress for the eminent skill and gallantry exhibited by him in the late remarkable battle between the United States ironclad steamer Monitor, under his command, and the rebel ironclad ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... said Sir Rupert. 'But whatever their reasons, I think the victors did the wisest thing possible in putting their man on board their big ironclad, the "Almirante Cochrane," and setting ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy

... which he underwent during the Civil War made itself felt in later years. Adams was instrumental in getting Lord John Russell to stop the "Alexandra,'' and it was his industry and pertinacity in argument and remonstrance that induced Russell to order the detention in September 1863 of the two ironclad rams intended for the Confederate States. Adams remained in England until May 1868. His last important work was as a member, in 1871—1872, of the tribunal of arbitration at Geneva which disposed of the "Alabama'' claims. His ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... time of planting and management do not vary materially from those of the musk variety. The following kinds will scarcely fail to give satisfaction where they can be grown: Phinney's Early, Black Spanish, Mammoth Ironclad, Mountain Sprout, Scaly ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe

... smiled upon Clara, and made a deprecating gesture with his left hand. Nothing seemed to pierce his ironclad composure. A moment afterward he returned to the theme, and recited some verses called "Stonewall Jackson's Way." He recited them very well. One ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... single captive ascent at Brunn in 1872, and developed a speed of three miles an hour. After 1870 the reconstituted French Government showed itself willing to encourage aeronautics, and in 1872, at the cost of the State, a large dirigible was built by Dupuy de Lome, the inventor of the ironclad. This ship, with an airscrew driven by manpower, attained a speed of five and a half miles an hour. The first really successful power-driven airship, that is, the first airship to return to its starting-point at the ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh

... moving. There was no doubt of it. Moving with a terrible sinuous motion. Occasionally an incautious ironclad approached like a foolish hen, and pecked at the moving mass. Then there was a slight crash, followed by a mild convulsion of masts, and spars, and iron-plates, and 100-ton guns, then two or three gurgles and all was still. The ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. February 21, 1891 • Various

... Admiral Porter was equally busy in the Yazoo River, threatening the enemy's batteries at Haines's and Snyder's Bluffs above. In a sharp engagement he lost one of his best officers, in the person of Captain Gwin, United States Navy, who, though on board an ironclad, insisted on keeping his post on deck, where he was struck in the breast by a round shot, which carried away the muscle, and contused the lung within, from which he died a few days after. We of the army deplored his loss ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman

... weapons not on a broadside of thirty guns of small calibre, but on two pivotal 100-pounder columbiads, or, perhaps, if necessary, on blows from her hog snout,—the Fulton was the true prototype of the modern steam ironclad, with its few heavy guns and ram. Almost as significant is the presence of the Torpedo. I have not chronicled the several efforts made by the Americans to destroy British vessels with torpedoes; some very nearly succeeded, and ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt

... amount of knowledge of all the sciences, and once every year, though no one ever knew when he would be moved to relate it, he told a thrilling story of how once, guided by the stars, he had run a Confederate blockade in a waterlogged ironclad under a withering fire from the enemy's batteries. And when he had finished and the applause ceased, he glanced about with an air of surprise and said: "Thank you, young gentlemen; it pleases me to find you so enthusiastic in your pursuit of knowledge. ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson

... impossible. Or did a Martian sit within each, ruling, directing, using, much as a man's brain sits and rules in his body? I began to compare the things to human machines, to ask myself for the first time in my life how an ironclad or a steam engine would seem to ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells

... political circles. Paul Brennan found his man in Frank Manison, a rising figure in the office of the District Attorney. Manison had gubernatorial ambitions, and he was politically sharp. He personally conducted only those cases that would give him ironclad publicity; he preferred to lower the boom on a lighter charge than chance an acquittal. Manison also had a fine feeling for anticipating public trends, a sense of the drama, and an understanding of ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith

... platform, we could hear more distinctly the boom of the guns, which sounded like the broadsides of a big vessel. Were they the guns of Persano's long inactive fleet attacking some of Brondolo's or Chioggia's advanced forts? Were the guns those of some Austrian man-of-war which had engaged an Italian ironclad; or were they the 'Affondatore,' which left the Thames only a month ago, pitching into Trieste? To tell the truth, although we patiently waited two long hours on Dolo church spire, when both I and my companion ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... promises, enlists for no stated term. He has in no sense become a part of an army; he is in no way restrained of his freedom. Yet he will presently find that his bosses and his newspapers have assumed just the reverse of that: that they have blandly arrogated to themselves an ironclad military authority over him; and within twelve months, if he is an average man, he will have surrendered his liberty, and will actually be silly enough to believe that he cannot leave that party, for any cause whatever, without ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... have been measured by the available funds of three poor musicians. But the whole affair did its mission admirably—even more effectively than an official commission to (let us say) inquire into the cause of the loss of an ironclad. It—the tree I mean, not the commission—was intended to excite joy and delight, and it did excite them to a very high extent. It was meant to produce astonishment in unsophisticated minds—it did that too, and here it has a point ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill

... our own admiral came in, in the mail steamer, and glad are we that he has arrived, that we may be again on the move, for you know there are happier states and more comfortable, than a forcible detention in a red-hot ironclad. ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith

... mean is to say that the whole craft seems to be alive, and a perfect demon of energy and strength. Many persons hold that a torpedo boat is likely to be more useful in terrifying an enemy than in doing him real harm, and we can safely say that the captain of an ironclad who saw half a dozen of these vessels bearing down on him, and did not wish himself well out of a scrape, has more nerve than ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 595, May 28, 1887 • Various

... western side. The Sand Hill, as its name imported, was the only existing relic within the city's verge of the chain of downs once encircling the whole place. It had however been cannonaded so steadily during the six months' siege as to have become almost ironclad—a mass of metal gradually accumulating from the enemy's guns. With the curtain extending from it towards east and west it protected the old town quite up to the little ancient brick church, one of the only two ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... afternoon existence of Hilo is disturbed. Two days ago an official intimation was received that the American Government had placed the U.S. ironclad "Benicia" at the disposal of King Lunalilo for a cruise round Hawaii, and that he would arrive here the following morning with Admiral Pennock and the U.S. ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird

... perform any evolutions, they might without danger be invested with armor plate thicker than that of ordinary ironclads. In order to complete the system, there might be erected upon the Eclat shoal an ironclad fort like that which ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 455, September 20, 1884 • Various

... victor's description. It is a singular thing that during those twenty-five years of incessant fighting the material and methods of warfare made so little progress. So far as I know, there was no great change in either between 1789 and 1805. The breech-loader, heavy artillery, the ironclad, all great advances in the art of war, have been invented in time of peace. There are some improvements so obvious, and at the same time so valuable, that it is extraordinary that they were not adopted. Signalling, for example, whether by heliograph or by flag-waving, would have made ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle

... in March, 1862, sent a thrill of relief and joy through the North by its wonderful victory over the Merrimac. The Confederates cut down a United States frigate at the Norfolk navy yard, and transformed it into an ironclad ram, with a powerful beak. This monster they sent against the Union fleet of wooden warships in Hampton Roads. Broadsides had no effect on the Merrimac. The floating fortress attacked the Cumberland, ramming that vessel, and breaking a great hole in its side. The Cumberland ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann

... running order and everything progressing smoothly when one morning at breakfast I was informed that Pierola had broken out again. This time his party had, by means unknown, captured the Peruvian ironclad ram, Huascar. He must have been aided by the officers, or at least one of them who declared in his favor. Howbeit, he had possession. The Peruvian fleet was sent in pursuit, but as the Huascar was the most powerful vessel of the fleet, they had ...
— Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew • Robert McReynolds

... another to death. So exhausted were they by the terrible conflict, that our comfort was not again disturbed by them during this particular visit. We were lucky, though at first we scarcely saw it, in getting two evenly matched ironclad bores together. If we had had only one, the matter would have been ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 3, 1892 • Various



Words linked to "Ironclad" :   war vessel, combat ship, brassbound



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com