torpedo
n. countablen. a long, thin weapon that travels underwater to blow up ships or submarines. It looks like a small, metal whale and is fired from a boat or plane.
n. a self-propelled underwater missile designed to be launched from a submarine, surface vessel, or aircraft. It contains an explosive warhead and is steered toward a target by internal guidance systems.
The submarine fired a torpedo at the enemy ship.
Naval historians often discuss how the invention of the torpedo changed the nature of sea battles forever.
Advanced acoustic sensors allow the modern torpedo to track the specific sound signature of a target's engines, making it nearly impossible for a large vessel to escape.
Borrowed from Latin torpēdō (“a torpedo fish; numbness, torpidity, electric ray”), from torpeō (“to be stiff, numb, torpid; to be astounded; to be inactive”) + -ēdō (noun suffix), from Proto-Indo-European ster- (“stiff”). In the military sense coined by Robert Fulton in 1805. Cognate with Old English steorfan (“to die”), Ancient Greek στερεός (stereós, “solid”), Lithuanian tirpstu (“to become rigid”), Old Church Slavonic трупети (trupeti). * (type of car): From 1908, after "the Torpedo", a car designed by Captain Theo Masui.