The massive, triangular Imperial starships that appear in the original Star Wars trilogy (Han calls them "the big Corellian ships") are well known to be "Star Destroyers." Since these vessels are clearly not capable of destroying any stars, the name seems to indicate that they are spacegoing equivalents of naval destroyers. As anyone who had played Battleship knows, destroyers (originally short for "torpedo boat destroyers") are the smallest class of heavy sea-going warships.
Cruisers are larger warships, although still smaller than battleships. However, as the Millennium Falcon is escaping from Tatooine, Han Solo identifies the first ship he sees chasing them as an "imperial cruiser." Is there an explanation in some secondary source of why he makes this apparent error?
