cavalry
Pluralcavalries (some meanings)
- 1The branch of an army whose soldiers fight on horseback.
The general held his cavalry in reserve until the enemy's line began to break.
Two thousand cavalry crossed the river at dawn and circled behind the town.
Note
Horseback armies belong mostly to the past, and so does this sense of the word. English borrowed it in the 1540s from Middle French cavalerie, itself from Italian cavalleria, and chivalry is its twin from the same source. Used of the riders themselves, it takes a number like a plural noun: Arthur Conan Doyle's The White Company (1891) has two hundred heavily-armed cavalry riding behind a standard.
- 2Someone or something that comes to the rescue, especially in an emergency.
When the project fell weeks behind, management called in the cavalry from the head office.
The power had been out for hours when the cavalry finally showed up: a single electrician with a flashlight.
Similarreinforcements
Note
Rescue borrows the picture of the horseback branch arriving just in time. The set phrase is call in the cavalry, meaning to send for stronger help when a situation is getting away from you. The word can also stand bare, without the, in a hurried warning: Howard Tayler's Schlock Mercenary has Heads down! Cavalry incoming!
- 3The branch of an army that moves in fast, light vehicles, also called mechanized cavalry.
The division's cavalry scouted the road ahead in light armored vehicles.
He served twenty years in the cavalry, most of them commanding a troop of light reconnaissance vehicles.
Note
Here the name has outlived the horse: units that move in fast, light vehicles kept the old title. When they must be told apart from the horseback branch, the full name is mechanized cavalry. Because the riders on horseback now belong mostly to history, the plain word in a modern army is often understood to mean these vehicle-borne troops.
- 4A single unit or formation belonging to an army's cavalry branch.
He left the infantry and joined the Third Cavalry as a young lieutenant.
The general had three cavalries under his command, each led by a colonel.
Note
A cavalry in this use is one formation, something you can count, and the plural cavalries belongs to uses like this one: three cavalries are three separate units. Compare the horseback branch, where a number counts soldiers instead. Two hundred cavalry are two hundred riders, not two hundred formations, so the plural ending is the reader's clue to which is meant.
Practice
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Origin
From Middle French cavalerie, in turn from Italian cavalleria; recorded in English from the 1540s. It is a doublet of chivalry.