Q-ship

noun

A merchant ship with concealed weaponry, designed to lure submarines into making surface attacks.

Similar
Q-boat
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Meanings

nounQ-ship (plural Q-ships)

plural Q-ships

  1. historicalgovernmentA merchant ship with concealed weaponry, designed to lure submarines into making surface attacks.

    Q-ships were usually armed with one 4-inch and two 12-pounder guns. These were hidden behind hinged bulwarks, inside false superstructures and false deck cargoes, or under dummy lifeboats.

    2005, Spencer Tucker, Priscilla Mary Roberts, World War I: Encyclopedia, ABC-Clio, →ISBN, page 956

    Synonyms: Q-boat

Synonyms & antonyms

nounA merchant ship with concealed weaponry, designed to lure submarines into making surface attacks.

Similar
Q-boat
Also see
q-boat

Origin

Short for Queenstown (now Cobh) in Ireland, the home port of the British Q-ships, when they were first implemented in World War I.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

Q-ship. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Q-ship

MLA

“Q-ship.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Q-ship. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Q-ship,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Q-ship.

Source: Q-ship on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.