Meaning & use
Zeppelin
Last updated
A large, cigar-shaped rigid airship with a framework covering a series of internal gas cells, used chiefly in the early 20th century.
See it in a sentence
Photographs from the 1930s show a zeppelin docking at a mooring mast in New Jersey.
The museum's model zeppelin illustrates how the rigid frame supported the outer envelope.
A note on using this word
The name comes from Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, the German inventor who pioneered rigid airship design in the late 19th century; the most famous zeppelin, the Hindenburg, was destroyed in a 1937 fire.
Words with a similar meaning
airshipdirigible
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