Definition of "caravel" [car•a•vel]

• Nautical Any of several types of small, light sailing ships, especially one with two or three masts and lateen sails used by the Spanish and Portuguese in the 15th and 16th centuries. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "That the word caravel was intended to signify a vessel of a small size is evident from a naval classification made by king Alonzo in the middle of the thirteenth century."
• "The base AC to shoot a caravel is -3 because it’s just a big ass object really (value taken from Stormwrack), or AC3 if you want to shoot at a specific section."
• "It was a type of vessel known as a caravel, and no one knows exactly what they looked like or how they were built."