''garrison'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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''garrison'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260320113731-00-⌔

garrison - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

garrison (plural garrisons)

• A permanent military post.
• The troops stationed at such a post.
  • ✤ 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.¹
  • ✤ For a time, it was the only Royalist stronghold between London and Exeter, but it fell at last when a member of the garrison turned traitor and admitted the Parliamentary besiegers who destroyed it with gunpowder.²
• (allusive) Occupants.
  • ✤ “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. …”³
• (US, military, U.S. Space Force) A military unit, nominally headed by a colonel, equivalent to a USAF support wing, or an army regiment.

Verb

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

• To assign troops to a military post.
  • ✤ Nor was he content with thus strongly garrisoning the fort, but he likewise added exceedingly to its strength by furnishing it with a formidable battery of quaker guns—rearing a stupendous flag-staff in the centre which overtopped the whole city—and moreover by building a great windmill on one of the bastions.⁴
• To convert into a military fort.
• To occupy with troops.
  • ‘Establishing a land bridge through Mariupol to Crimea would take tens of thousands of troops. So would garrisoning eastern Ukraine.’, http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21615605-now-willing-use-russian-troops-more-or-less-openly-eastern-ukraine-vladimir-putin-has

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

• (Received Pronunciation, Australian) IPA: /ˈɡæɹ.ɪ.sən/
• (General American) IPA: /ˈɡæɹ.ɪ.sən/
• (Mary–marry–merry merger) IPA: /ˈɡɛɹ.ə.sən/
  • Audio (US): 🔊
• Rhymes: -æɹɪsən
• Hyphenation: gar‧ri‧son

Printed 2026-06-28.

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Footnotes

1. c. 1587–1588 (date written), [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: ↩

2. 1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 134, about Corfe Castle: ↩

3. 1913, Robert Barr, chapter 4, in Lord Stranleigh Abroad ‎${}^{[1]}$: ↩

4. 1809, Diedrich Knickerbocker [pseudonym; Washington Irving], chapter III, in A History of New York, from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty. […], volume I, New York, N.Y.: Inskeep & Bradford, […], →OCLC, book IV, page 216: ↩

Link to original

Secondary

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