corvette, small warship, classed between a frigate and a sloop-of-war. Corvettes usually were flush-decked and carried fewer than 28 guns. They were widely employed in escorting convoys and attacking merchant ships during the great naval wars of the late 18th and early 19th cent., but corvettes passed from use with the transition from sail to steam. At the beginning of World War II the term was reintroduced to designate a small vessel of about 1,000 tons displacement, armed with depth charges and a single 4-in. (10.2-cm) gun. In the early years of the war, large numbers of these vessels were employed by the British and Canadian navies as convoy escorts in the North Atlantic; later they were supplanted by the larger, faster, and better-armed frigates.

Fast naval vessel smaller than a frigate. In the 18th–19th century corvettes were three-masted ships with square rigging and carried about 20 guns on the top deck. Often used to send dispatches within a battle fleet, they also escorted merchant ships. Early U.S. corvettes won distinction in the War of 1812. They disappeared as a class after the shift to steam power in the mid-19th century, but in World War II the term was applied to small armed vessels that served as escorts for convoys. Modern corvettes, usually displacing 500–1,000 tons (454–900 metric tons) and armed with missiles, torpedoes, and machine guns, perform antisubmarine, antiaircraft, and coastal-patrol duties in small navies.

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