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In the 17th–19th centuries, a frigate was a three-masted, fully rigged sailing ship, often carrying 30–40 guns in all. Smaller and faster than ships of the line (the principal vessels of naval warfare), frigates served as scouts or as escorts protecting merchant convoys; they also cruised the seas as merchant raiders themselves. In World War II, Britain revived the term frigate using it to describe escort ships equipped with sonar and depth charges, and used these ships to guard convoys from submarines. In the postwar decades, the frigate also adopted an antiaircraft role, adding radar and surface-to-air missiles. Modern frigates can sail at a speed of 30 knots and carry a crew of 200.
Examples of frigate in a Sentence
Ryan Chan, MSNBC Newsweek, 21 July 2025
Advertisement Gayton seized Platt again and set sail from Jamaica, keeping him in shackles for months aboard his ship before transferring him to another Royal Navy frigate, which transferred him to a third naval ship headed to England.
—Time, 9 July 2025
Rolls-Royce Nova's Alvarenga agreed that European governments would also pour money into bolstering the region's maritime forces, especially in frigates, corvettes, and support vessels.
—Chloe Taylor, CNBC, 30 June 2025
In September 2021, the frigate HMS Richmond—deployed to the western Pacific with an aircraft carrier group—transited the waterway en route to Vietnam after operating in the East China Sea.
—Ryan Chan, MSNBC Newsweek, 20 June 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Frigate.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/frigate. Accessed 4 Aug. 2025.
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frigate
noun
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