ˈfire-ship
1. A vessel freighted with combustibles and explosives, and sent adrift among ships, etc. to destroy them.
| 1588 Parke tr. Mendoza's Hist. China 170 Captayne of the fire shippes of Chincheo. 1628 Meade in Ellis Orig. Lett. Ser. i. III. 270, I cannot hear of above some two or three of our fireships lost. 1709 Steele Tatler No. 21 ¶16 Sir Edward Whitaker, with five Men of War, four Transports and two Fireships, was arrived at that Port. a 1859 Macaulay Hist. Eng. V. 20 Montague bitterly described him as a fireship, dangerous at best, but on the whole most dangerous as a consort. |
2. slang. One suffering from venereal disease; a prostitute.
| 1672 Wycherley Love in Wood ii, Are you not a Fire-ship, a Punk, Madam? 1673 R. Head Canting Acad. 18 Thy Sweep-stakes still shall bare the Bell, No Fire-ship yet aboard it fell. 1738 Swift Polite Conv. ii Wks. 1883 IX. 447 No; damn your fire-ships, I have a wife of my own. 1748 Smollett Rod. Rand. I. xxiii, ‘A fire-ship!..more like a poor galley in distress that has been boarded by such a fire-ship as you.’ |