ENGLISH DICTIONARY

Fifth-rate

Definition, Meaning & Examples

Part of speech adjective

Quick meaning: Fifth-rate is an adjective meaning (idiomatic, uncommon) Terrible, awful; less than fourth-rate.

Meaning

(idiomatic, uncommon) Terrible, awful; less than fourth-rate.

More Meanings

  1. (UK, military, nautical, historical) A fifth-rate warship.
  2. (UK, military, nautical, historical) Of a Royal Navy warship in the Napoleonic Era: having 32–44 guns across one or two gun decks, a complement of 200–300, and weighing 700–1,450 tons burthen.

Example Sentences

[A] great and ſtout Fleet before the Texel (and not as much as one of our Fourth or Fifth Rate-Frigats could follow them)[.]

Word Forms

Synonyms for fifth-rate

Depending on context, synonyms include dismal, horrible, rubbish, abysmal, atrocious, bad.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include sixth-rate, third-rate, fourth-rate, second-rate, first-rate, heavy.

Related Dictionary Tools

Sources & Attribution

FreeDictionaryAPI.com / Wiktionary · Original source · CC BY-SA 4.0

Dictionary data is provided by FreeDictionaryAPI.com and sourced from Wiktionary under its stated license.