Battleship is the name applied to very large, heavily-armored warships with a main battery consisting of the largest caliber of guns, specifically those ships built from the late 1800s through to the mid-20th century. The word battleship was coined around 1794 and is a shortened form of line-of-battle ship (otherwise known as ship of the line). Modern battleships developed from the 19th-century ironclad warship, and the common image of the battleship derives from the design of the revolutionary HMS Dreadnought.