The story
- Middle English · inherited fromdestroyour
- English todaydestroyer
Inherited from Middle English destroyour, destroyere; By surface analysis, destroy + -er. Designating a warship, it is ellipsis of torpedo-boat destroyer, the longer term appearing at the end of the 19th century and the shorter form early in the 20th.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.