Alternatives to the pre-dreadnought classification

What historically grounded term could replace pre-dreadnought?

Steam battleship or a related propulsion-based label may work best, but the period's mixed armour and mounting arrangements resist a perfectly clean classification.

Possible replacements include evolved ironclad, turreted battleship, Royal Sovereign type, and steam battleship. Each captures part of the transition, but mixed iron and steel structures, changing armour processes, barbettes, turrets, and national differences frustrate a single clean boundary. Some ships carried both Harvey and Krupp armour, while others paired steel turrets with iron belts. Those hybrids make steel-clad no cleaner as a universal label than Royal Sovereign type. Contemporary officers generally called all of them battleships, leaving later historians to construct the finer categories. A steam-based classification may be the least awkward answer, but the terminology remains unsettled.