The French word téméraire means “reckless” or “foolhardy”. At the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, the British warship HMS Temeraire discovered another shade of meaning, outfighting and capturing two French ships in fierce actions; its name would be immortalised by J M W Turner’s painting, The Fighting Temeraire. From Nelson’s HMS Victory to HMS Warspite to USS Constitution, the legacies and commensurately bombastic names of many historic warships still carry........

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