sea powern.
1. A nation or state having international power or influence on sea. Cf. power n.1 8c.
ΘΚΠ
society > authority > power > [noun] > powerful person or body > powerful state or nation > types of
ocean power1713
colonial power1801
sea power1849
occupying power1866
superpower1911
1849 G. Grote Hist. Greece V. ii. xxxix. 67 The conversion of Athens from a land-power into a sea-power.
1890 A. T. Mahan Influence Sea Power 225 Before that war [of the Spanish succession] England was one of the sea powers; after it she was the sea power, without any second.
1906 W. M. Ramsay in Expositor Apr. 365 Tarsus..became a harbour and a sea power.
2. The strength and efficiency of a nation (or of nations generally) for maritime warfare.The currency of the term in its more abstract use is due to Captain A. T. Mahan's book, Influence of Sea-power on History (1890). In a letter of 19 Feb. 1897, printed in E. Marston, After Work (1904) 257, Capt. Mahan states that the combination was deliberately adopted by him ‘in order to compel attention’.
ΘΚΠ
society > armed hostility > hostilities at sea > [noun] > naval power
sea power1665
1665 H. Oldenburg Let. 28 Sept. in R. Boyle Corr. (2001) II. 541 I am apt to believe, that France will prouve a broken reed to them [the Dutch]; and that at last, seing the Seapower of England, they will strike in with them, for a share in Trade.
1883 J. R. Seeley Expansion of Eng. 89 Commerce..was swept out of the Mediterranean by the besom of the Turkish sea-power.
1885 Encycl. Brit. XVIII. 574/1 Themistocles..the founder of the Attic sea-power.
1902 Sir C. Bridge in Encycl. Brit. XXXII. 493/1 In the first and greatest of the contests waged by the nations of the East against Europe—the Persian wars—sea-power was the governing factor.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1911; most recently modified version published online September 2021).
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n.1665