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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, 18 Sep. 2025
Back on the Danish frigate, in the Nuuk Fjord, flanked by Greenland’s bleak mountains of sheer black rock, the boom of practicing naval artillery guns reverberates into the Arctic abyss, as fighter jets scream overhead.
—Matthew Chance, CNN Money, 16 Sep. 2025
Thales has completed Factory Acceptance Tests (FATs) for both the Mission System and the Combat System on the Royal Navy’s new Type 31 Inspiration-class frigates.
—Prabhat Ranjan Mishra, Interesting Engineering, 7 Sep. 2025
The first three Mogami-class frigates will be built overseas, Conroy said, with shipbuilding yards in Western Australia expected to produce the rest.
—Eleanor Pringle, Fortune, 5 Aug. 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Frigate.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/frigate. Accessed 29 Sep. 2025.
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frigate
noun
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