The original term back the was "Dreadnought" from the first British battleship although the terms became interchangeable. I have gotten tired of every warship today being called a "battleship" including those with little to no armor and nothing bigger than a 5" gun! Battleships were rulers of the sea for years until aircraft came along and the Pearl Harbor/Prince of Wales & Repulse sinkings showed the way of the future.
The Battle of the Coral Sea (April 29-May 8, 1942) was the first major U.S. Navy fleet action against Japan and the first naval engagement in history in which the participating ships never sighted or fired directly at each other.
Although the attacks between two U.S. Navy task forces and a combined U.S.Australian cruiser force with the Japanese Carrier Strike Force and supporting units resulted in a Japanese tactical victory, where the US Navy lost the big deck carrier USS
Lexington (CV-2), a destroyer and an oiler, the Japanese were forced to withdraw from the operational area after losing a light carrier (IJN
Shoho) and suffered serious damage to a fleet carrier (IJN
Shokaku), which prevented her from taking part in the Midway attack. However, with their air groups too battered to support a further advance, the Japanese were brought to a standstill, and both sides limped home.
The USS
Yorktown was damaged in The Coral Sea by Japanese bombing and limped to Pearl Harbor where emergency repairs were completed to enable the carrier {the sister ship of the USS
Enterprise (CV-6) "The Big E", and the USS
Hornet (CV-8)} to take part in The Battle of Midway, June 4-7, 1942. Although the
Yorktown was lost at Midway, she assisted US naval units in decisively defeating the Imperial Japanese Navy and placing them on the defensive for the remainder of WWII.