laager

Plurallaagers

Formslaagers, laagering, laagered

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A defensive camp formed by drawing wagons into a circle around it, used especially by South African Boers.

   The settlers pulled their wagons into a laager as night fell.

   By dawn the laager had held against repeated raids.

   Similarencampment, camp

   Note

   A borrowing from South African Dutch lager, "camp", and a doublet of both lager the beer and lair, which share its Germanic root. Wagons are formed or drawn into a laager. James Bryce in 1897 adds the oxen kept inside, safe from wild beasts. By André Brink's 1978 line, drawing "our little laager more tightly" means a community shrinking its frontiers and closing ranks.

2. 2
   verbintransitive

   To make camp in a circular formation, typically for protection.

   The convoy laagered for the night beside the river.

   At dusk the soldiers laager near the only water source.

   Similarcamp, encamp, bivouac

   Note

   Here the people or the convoy are the subject. The verb either stands alone or takes a phrase of place: they laagered near the ford. The word outlived the ox wagon. Jeff Dossett's Delayed Detonation (2000) still writes "we laagered close to a large open area covered with elephant grass," a long way from the Boer frontier.

3. 3
   verbtransitive

   To draw wagons or vehicles into a circle to defend a position.

   The captain laagered the wagons before the storm broke.

   They laager the trucks each night to guard the supplies.

   Similarcircle

   Note

   The transitive verb puts the wagons, not the people, in the object slot: you laager the wagons or the trucks. H. Rider Haggard's Finished (1917) shows the phrasing, with a camp that took "no precautions against attack by way of laagering the wagons." When the travelers themselves are the subject and nothing follows, the verb shifts to the intransitive "make camp" use.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   A temporary formation of armored vehicles brought together for refueling, rearming, and resupply.

   The squadron withdrew to a laager behind the lines to take on ammunition and fuel.

   Each laager was struck within an hour so the column could advance.

   Note

   Armored warfare borrowed the wagon ring of the Boer camp for its own pause in the fighting. Here the circle is a resupply halt rather than a home. Tanks and other vehicles pull back from the line, take on fuel and ammunition, and move off again. A unit withdraws to a laager or forms one. The word always implies something brief, which is what separates it from a base or depot.

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