the.com/fleet
A navy's worth of ships, or the speed of something that won't stick around to be admired.
means Either a group of ships (or vehicles) operating together under one command, or the quality of being swift and fast-moving — and by extension, something that passes by all too quickly.
from These are actually two different words that collided into one spelling. The ships sense comes from Old English 'fleot,' meaning a ship or a flowing body of water, tied to the verb 'fleotan,' to float or swim — the same root that gives us 'float.' The speed sense comes from a separate Old English word, 'fleot' again but via 'fleotan' in its other shade of meaning, 'to move swiftly,' related to Old Norse words for drifting and gliding. Both trace back to the same ancient Germanic idea of moving over water — one hardened into 'a fleet of ships,' the other drifted into 'fleet of foot.'
- same root
- float, fleet, and flotsam all share one ancestor
- london clue
- Fleet Street is named after a buried river, not ships
- double duty
- noun for ships, adjective for speed, same word
- corporate twist
- a company car fleet has zero interest in swimming