One way to hold `destroyer` is as destroy + -er: the one whose part in the story is to take something out. Sometimes that one is a beetle in an orchard, or damp air in a shoebox of photographs. Sometimes it is a long grey ship. The ship is not a second idea; it is the same idea wearing a hull.
Wiktionary analyses the word as destroy + -er, inherited through Middle English destroyour. In the warship use it records an ellipsis of torpedo-boat destroyer, a term that appears at the end of the 19th century and is shortened early in the 20th.
維基詞典把 destroyer 分析成 destroy 加 -er，並且說它經由中古英文 destroyour 傳下來。軍艦的意思則是 torpedo-boat destroyer 的省略；長名字出現在十九世紀末，短的形式在二十世紀初固定下來。所以「破壞的那一個」和「驅逐艦」在來源上是同一條線。
Wiktionary entry `destroyer` (evidence packet source_ref kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:1015889117:52189)
From the picture
海上的那一艘
同一個角色被裝進一艘船裡。這條船的全名本來把工作寫在名字上：torpedo-boat destroyer，專門收拾魚雷艇。名字叫短之後，只剩下那個角色本身。
noun · B2
A fast warship that is bigger than a frigate and smaller than a cruiser. Older ones carried guns; newer ones usually carry guided missiles and guard a group of ships against attack from the air or from other ships.
驅逐艦
noun · B2
A person or thing that destroys something — that ruins it, breaks it apart, or wipes it out. It usually appears with `of` and the thing that is ruined.
破壞者