a. and sb. [ad. L. quinquerēmis, f. quinque five + rēmus oar: cf. F. quinquérème (1530).]
A. adj. Of ancient ships: Having five banks of oars.
1654–66. Earl Orrery, Parthen. (1676), 716. Hardly any one had escaped, but a few Quinquereme Galleys.
1697. [see QUADRIREME A].
1852. Grote, Greece, II. lxxxii. X. 669. One among his newly-invented quinquereme vessels.
B. sb. A ship having five banks of oars.
1553. Brende, Q. Curtius, IV. 41 b. The firste Galley of the Macedons that came nere them was a quinquereme.
1600. Holland, Livy, XLII. xlvii. 1143. Himselfe was sent back againe with certaine Quinqueremes.
1734. trans. Rollin’s Anc. Hist. (1827), I. II. 376. Quinqueremes, or galleys with five benches of oars.
1799. [see QUADRIREME B].
1840. Arnold, Hist. Rome, II. 566. They had not a single quinquereme, the class of ships which may be called the line of battle ships of that period.
1865. Athenæum, No. 1949. 307/3. A Carthaginian quinquereme.
