Battlecruiser vs. Battleship — What's the Difference?

The battlecruiser (also written as battle cruiser or battle-cruiser) was a type of capital ship of the first half of the 20th century. These were similar in displacement, armament and cost to battleships, but differed in form and balance of attributes.

A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of large caliber guns, which dominated naval warfare in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The term battleship came into use in the late 1880s to describe a type of ironclad warship, now referred to by historians as pre-dreadnought battleships.

A fast warship with thicker armor and heavier guns than a typical cruiser, but with armor, armament, or both still inferior to that of a dreadnought battleship; designed to act as an advanced scout of the battle fleet and to destroy enemy cruisers.

A heavy warship of a type built chiefly in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with extensive armour protection and large-calibre guns.

(fiction) A warship of intermediate size and/or capability between a heavy cruiser and a (light) battleship.

Any of a class of very large warships, heavily armored and armed with numerous large-caliber guns. Also called battlewagon.

(Cockney rhyming slang) A boozer; a public house.

A large capital warship displacing thousands to tens of thousands of tons, heavily armoured and armed with large-caliber guns; now obsolescent and replaced by smaller vessels with guided missiles.

A ship of the line.

A non-functional rocket stage, used for configuration and integration tests.

A guessing game played on grid paper; see Battleship (game).

An armor-plated warship built of steel and heavily armed, generally having over ten thousand tons displacement, and intended to be fit to combat the heaviest enemy ships in line of battle; the most heavily armed and armored class of warship at any given time.

Large and heavily armoured warship