armada

noun ar·ma·da \ är-ˈmä-də , -ˈmā- also -ˈma- \

|Updated on: 18 Jun 2018

Examples: armada in a Sentence

Editor's Note: Did You Know?

Definition of armada

1 : a fleet of warships

2 : a large force or group usually of moving things

See armada defined for English-language learners

See armada defined for kids

Examples of armada in a Sentence

an armada of fishing boats
an armada of ships sailing up the coast

Recent Examples of armada from the Web

Todd Pletcher, who seems to get an armada of expensive Thoroughbreds in his barn each year and wins big races with them coast-to-coast, comes with four top contenders.

— dan wolken, USA TODAY, "Three big storylines heading into Kentucky Derby week," 29 Apr. 2018
To counter this armada, the U.S. had only Callaghan’s task force, with two heavy cruisers, three light cruisers and eight destroyers.

— gary kamiya, San Francisco Chronicle, "In World War II, San Francisco’s namesake ship was a Navy hero," 25 May 2018
A few days later, past midnight, a dozen outgunned American ships, including Juneau, intercepted a Japanese armada approaching the island to bombard its critical airfield and the beleaguered U.S. Marines garrisoned there.

— chris stirewalt, Fox News, "The House is revolting," 25 May 2018
The prospect of fire and fury, destruction like the world had never seen, and armadas steaming toward North Korea all set the world on edge.

— jon wolfsthal, The New Republic, "If It Seems Too Good to Be True...," 21 Apr. 2018
These incentives have spawned a meandering armada of live-aboard cabin cruisers, barges, narrowboats, and other gaily painted scows now afloat on Britain’s inland waterways, some just barely.

— dan neil, WSJ, "The Low-Cost Way to Live Abroad: Buy a Boat," 30 Mar. 2018
To accommodate the barges, an earthen dam was hurriedly put in place so the armada could sail from the Houston Street bridge to the Carnegie Library.

— from express-news archives, San Antonio Express-News, "In 1905, King Selamat (tamales spelled backward) made official entrance on the river," 22 Apr. 2018
The report was the latest in an armada of red flags flying over the country's troubled fiscal outlook.

— tory newmyer, Washington Post, "The Finance 202: Paul Ryan's scary math legacy," 12 Apr. 2018
That’s enough to justify the voyage of SF Motors, the latest entrant into a growing armada of automakers whose founders or backers either hail from or are based in China.

— alex davies, WIRED, "SF Motors Brings the Latest Electric SUV to Challenge Tesla," 28 Mar. 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'armada.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Did You Know?

A Spanish word that originally meant simply "armed", armada is now used in Spanish-speaking nations as the name of their national navies. In English, the word usually has historical overtones. The Great Armada of 1588 was a 120-ship fleet sent by Philip II of Spain in an attempt to invade Elizabethan England; it was defeated when British forces lit eight ships afire and sent them sailing into the Armada's midst, then blocked the passage to the south so that the remaining ships were forced to sail northward around Britain in order to return home, causing dozens more ships to be wrecked in the stormy northern seas. Today we sometimes use the word humorously for fleets of fishing boats, rowboats, or canoes.