garrison

See also: Garrison

English

Etymology

From Middle English garisoun, garysoun, from Old French garison, guarison, from guarir + -ison, ultimately of Germanic origin; thus a doublet of warison. Compare guard, ward; the modern meaning is influenced by (now obsolete) garnison.

Pronunciation

Noun

garrison (plural garrisons)

  1. A permanent military post.
  2. The troops stationed at such a post.
    • c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. [] The First Part [], 2nd edition, part 1, London: [] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, [], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire, London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act III, scene iii:
      My Lord the great Commander of the worlde, []
      Hath now in armes ten thouſand Ianiſaries, []
      And for the expedition of this war,
      If he thinke good, can from his garriſons,
      UUithdraw as many more to follow him.
  3. (allusive) Occupants.
    • 1913, Robert Barr, chapter 4, in Lord Stranleigh Abroad:
      “I came down like a wolf on the fold, didn’t I ?  Why didn’t I telephone ?  Strategy, my dear boy, strategy. This is a surprise attack, and I’d no wish that the garrison, forewarned, should escape. …”
  4. (US, military, U.S. Space Force) A military unit, nominally headed by a colonel, equivalent to a USAF support wing, or an army regiment.

Synonyms

  • (USSF): delta (an operations wing equivalent)

Derived terms

Translations

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Verb

garrison (third-person singular simple present garrisons, present participle garrisoning, simple past and past participle garrisoned)

  1. To assign troops to a military post.
  2. To convert into a military fort.
  3. To occupy with troops.

Translations

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Anagrams

Jamaican Creole

Etymology

Semantic shift of English garrison.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈɡʲaɹɪsən/
  • Hyphenation: ga‧rri‧son

Noun

garrison (plural garrison dem, quantified garrison)

  1. A de facto autonomous district controlled by a don and the don's armed gang, typically loyal to a political party; a favela; a slum.
    Di yute dem nuh stop buss dem matic an' block road inna di garrison.
    The young men are constantly firing their semi-automatic rifles and blocking streets in the gang-controlled slums.
    • 2005, Don Barker, The Fear Factor: an Analysis of Crime in Jamaica and the Search for Solutions (in English), →ISBN, page 11:
      “The gang structure was deliberately organized during the seventies to defend partisan poltiical turf. Whole sections of the capital city of Kingston and other large towns became what are called "garrison" communities. A garrison community is a poor, inner city area sometimes naturally divided by a geographic item such as an open drainage sewer (called "gully" in Jamaica e.g. "McGregor Gully") or sometimes arbitrarily. []

See also

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