The battleship term and HMS Victory

Does 'battleship' come from 'line-of-battle ship,' and does that make HMS Victory a battleship?

That contraction is one plausible origin, and Victory is a defensible battleship predecessor, although the terminology remains murky.

'Line-of-battle ship' is presented as a plausible route to the shortened word 'battleship.' On that broad linguistic and functional reading, HMS Victory can reasonably sit in the battleship ancestry. The classification is inexact because the word later acquired narrower technical meanings associated with iron, steam, and modern capital ships. The exchange separates a ship's contemporary category from its later historical lineage.