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Flee vs Fleet - What's the difference?

flee | fleet |

As verbs the difference between flee and fleet

is that flee is to run away; to escape while fleet is to float.

As a noun fleet is

a group of vessels or vehicles.

As an adjective fleet is

swift in motion; moving with velocity; light and quick in going from place to place; nimble; fast.

As a proper noun Fleet is

the stream that ran where Fleet Street now runs.

flee

English

Verb

  • (label) To run away; to escape.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1922, author=(Michael Arlen), title= “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days, chapter=Ep./4/2
    • , passage=As they turned into Hertford Street they startled a robin from the poet's head on a barren fountain, and he fled away with a cameo note.}}
  • (label) To escape from.
  • (label) To disappear quickly; to vanish.

    • Related terms

    * flight

    Anagrams

    * * English irregular verbs ----

    fleet

    English

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A group of vessels or vehicles.
  • Any group of associated items.
  • * 2004 , Jim Hoskins, Building an on Demand Computing Environment with IBM
    • This is especially true in distributed printing environments, where a fleet of printers is shared by users on a network.
  • (nautical) A number of vessels in company, especially war vessels; also, the collective naval force of a country, etc.
  • (nautical, British Royal Navy) Any command of vessels exceeding a squadron in size, or a rear-admiral's command, composed of five sail-of-the-line, with any number of smaller vessels.

    • Etymology 2

    From (etyl)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (obsolete) A flood; a creek or inlet, a bay or estuary, a river subject to the tide. cognate to Low German fleet
  • * Matthewes
    • Together wove we nets to entrap the fish / In floods and sedgy fleets .
  • (nautical) A location, as on a navigable river, where barges are secured.
    • Derived terms
    * Fleet * fleet in being * Fleet Street * merchant fleet

    Etymology 3

    From (etyl)

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (obsolete) To float.
    • [Antony] "Our sever'd navy too,
    Have knit again, and fleet, threat'ning most sea-like."'' -- Shakespeare, ''Antony and Cleopatra
  • To pass over rapidly; to skim the surface of
    • a ship that fleets the gulf
    (Spenser)
  • To hasten over; to cause to pass away lightly, or in mirth and joy
  • * Shakespeare
    • Many young gentlemen flock to him, and fleet the time carelessly.
    And so through this dark world they fleet / Divided, till in death they meet;'' -- Percy Shelley, ''Rosalind and Helen .
  • (nautical) To move up a rope, so as to haul to more advantage; especially to draw apart the blocks of a tackle.
    • (Totten)
  • (nautical, obsolete) To shift the position of dead-eyes when the shrouds are become too long.
  • To cause to slip down the barrel of a capstan or windlass, as a rope or chain.
  • To take the cream from; to skim.

    • Adjective

    (en-adj)
  • (literary) Swift in motion; moving with velocity; light and quick in going from place to place; nimble; fast.
  • * Milton
    • In mail their horses clad, yet fleet and strong.
  • * 1908:
  • (uncommon) Light; superficially thin; not penetrating deep, as soil.
    • (Mortimer)