"battleship," literally "fearing nothing," from dread (v.) + nought (n.). Mentioned as the name of a ship in the Royal Navy c. 1596, but modern sense is from the name of the first of a new class of British battleships, based on the "all big-gun" principle (armed with 10 big guns rather than 4 large guns and a battery of smaller ones), launched Feb. 18, 1906.[Dreadnought etymology, Dreadnought origin, 英语词源]