the.com/carrier
a city that floats, launches death, and serves 5,000 sailors three meals daily.
means A person or thing that conveys, transports, or transmits something — be it goods, disease, a phone signal, or a fleet of aircraft across the sea.
from From 'carry,' which sailed into English through Anglo-Norman 'carier,' from Old North French 'carier' (to transport in a vehicle), built on Latin 'carrus' — a wheeled wagon, itself borrowed from a Gaulish word for the same. The '-er' is the plain old agent suffix that turns a verb into the one-who-does-it. So at root a carrier is simply 'the wagon-thing' — a startlingly humble ancestor for a 100,000-ton warship.
- floating city
- Crews exceed 5,000, larger than many towns
- catapult power
- Launches jets from zero to 165 mph instantly
- nuclear heart
- Reactors run 20+ years without refueling
- postal carriers
- USPS workers walk equivalent of Earth's circumference yearly
- disease term
- A carrier spreads illness while showing no symptoms
uss nimitz — u.s. navy nuclear aircraft carrier, 1,102 feet long, commissioned 1975
hms queen elizabeth — british aircraft carrier, 65,000 tons, commissioned 2017
charles de gaulle — french nuclear aircraft carrier, only non-u.s. nuclear carrier, commissioned 2001