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''regiment'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260127004310-00-⌔

regiment - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

regiment (countable and uncountable, plural regiments)

  • (countable, military) A unit of armed troops under the command of an officer, and consisting of several smaller units. [from 16th c.]
    • ✤ It was an old, withered man, who had served the Government in the days of the Mutiny as a native officer in a newly raised cavalry regiment.1
    • ✤ As the prime minister insisted that he had “never told a lie” in his life, the Tory leader attacked him for ordering Scottish troops into battle with no warning that their regiments would be disbanded.2
  • (now rare, archaic) Rule or governance over a person, place etc.; government, authority. [from 14th c.]
    • ✤ What place is there in all the world, not ſubiect to the regiment and power of this citie?3
    • ✤ Then loyall loue had royall regiment,
      And each vnto his luſt did make a lawe,
      From all forbidden things his liking to withdraw.      4
    • ✤ And how is it possible to distinguish precisely […] the powers of ecclesiastical regiment which none but the church should wield from the powers of ecclesiastical regiment (on the jus circa sacra) which secular and profane governments may handle without sin?5
  • (obsolete) The state or office of a ruler; rulership. [14th–17th c.]
    • ✤ But this it is that doth excruciate
      The verie ſubſtance of my vexed ſoule:
      To ſee our neighbours that were wont to quake
      And tremble at the Perſean Monarkes name,
      Now ſits and laughs our regiment to ſcorne, […]      6
  • (obsolete) Influence or control exercised by someone or something (especially a planet). [14th–17th c.]
    • ✤ Nature that fram’d vs of foure Elements,
      Warring within our breaſts for regiment,
      Doth teach vs all to haue aſpyring minds:      7
  • (countable, obsolete) A place under a particular rule; a kingdom or domain. [14th–17th c.]
    • ✤ An auncient booke […]
      That of this lands firſt conqueſt did deuize,
      And old diuiſion into Regiments, […]      8
  • (countable, obsolete, medicine) A regimen. [15th–19th c.]

Verb

regiment (third-person singular simple present regiments, present participle regimenting, simple past and past participle regimented)

  • (transitive) To form soldiers into a regiment.
    • ✤ The people are organized or regimented into bodies, and special functions are relegated to the several units.9
  • (transitive) To systematize, or put in rigid order.
    • ✤ The result was a tidy, law-abiding country, but one that visitors often described as regimented, sterile and dull.10

Etymology

From Middle French regement, régiment, and its source, Late Latin regimentum (“direction for government; course of medical treatment”), from Latin regō (“rule”).

Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ˈɹɛd͡ʒɪmənt/
  • Audio (US): 🔊

Printed 2026-06-28.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. 1900 December – 1901 October, Rudyard Kipling, chapter III, in Kim, London: Macmillan and Co., published 1901, →OCLC, page 65: ↩

  2. 2005 April 28, Nicholas Watt, Michael White, The Guardian: ↩

  3. 1576, Abraham Fleming, translating Cicero, A Panoplie of Epistles,&bnsp;XXXIII: ↩

  4. 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], part II (books IV–VI), London: […] [Richard Field] for William Ponsonby, →OCLC, page 116: ↩

  5. 1832, John Austin, The Province of Jurisprudence Determined,&bnsp;VI: ↩

  6. 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 I, scene i: ↩

  7. 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 II, scene vii: ↩

  8. 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto IX”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 324: ↩

  9. 1896, John Wesley Powell, On Primitive Institutions: ↩

  10. 2015 March 22, Washington Post, Lee Kuan Yew, who led Singapore into prosperity over 30-year rule, dies at 91 ‎: ↩

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