patrol

Pluralpatrols

Formspatrols, patrolling, patrolled

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A walk along a line or through a district to guard it; also, the people doing the guarding.

   Each patrol covered a different stretch of the perimeter through the night.

   The captain doubled the patrol after reports of intruders near the wall.

   Similarguard, watch, round

   Note

   This is the civilian sense, open to any line or district that needs guarding. It pairs readily with a noun naming what is guarded or how: a customs patrol, a fire patrol, a foot patrol. Alexander Hamilton already uses it this way in The Federalist Papers, writing of France's "army of patrols" kept to secure her fiscal regulations.

2. 2
   verbtransitive

   To move through a place as a sentry, guard, or police officer, keeping watch over it.

   Soldiers patrol the border, looking for anyone crossing illegally.

   She patrols the museum halls after closing time.

   Similarguard, police, monitor, watch

   Note

   With an object, the verb takes the guarded place directly: to patrol a frontier, a beat, or, in Bill Clinton's phrase, the world's seas and skies. It sits comfortably in the passive, where the place becomes the subject. H. A. Vallance's "On Foot Across the Forth Bridge" (1950) notes that the main spans are patrolled twice during the night.

3. 3
   verbintransitive

   To go the rounds along a line of sentries, or to move through an assigned police district or beat.

   Soldiers patrol along the fence line from dusk until dawn.

   She patrols through the quiet streets on the night shift.

   Note

   The verb took its own route into English, from French patrouiller, "to paddle, paw about, patrol". That is the same paw that sits behind the sentinels' round. Used without an object, it needs a preposition for the ground covered: soldiers patrol along a fence, and an officer patrols through the streets. The final l doubles before -ing and -ed, giving patrolling and patrolled, though the third-person form stays patrols.

4. 4
   noununcountable

   In a police or sheriff's department, the largest body of officers, whose job is patrolling and responding to calls for service.

   After the academy, she was assigned to patrol and rode with a senior officer.

   The department moved twenty officers from patrol to the investigations unit.

   Note

   Police departments use the word as the name of a division, and in that use it usually drops its article. An officer is assigned to patrol, moved out of patrol or works patrol, the way another works investigations. It is the uniformed core that answers calls for service, as distinct from detective and administrative units.

5. 5
   nouncountable

   A group of guards who make the rounds to observe; a detachment whose duty is to patrol.

   The commander sent a patrol to watch the river crossing.

   A patrol spotted enemy movement near the ridge and radioed back.

   Similardetachment, guard, squad, picket

   Note

   Here the word names the people rather than the act: the soldiers who make the round, not the round itself. A sentence decides which reading applies. When a patrol is ambushed, spots movement or radios back, it is the detachment acting as a group. When someone is on patrol, the word means the duty they are performing.

6. 6
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A movement by a small body of troops beyond the line of outposts, made to explore the area and gather intelligence about the enemy's location.

   The lieutenant led a patrol beyond the outposts to scout the valley.

   A night patrol brought back word that the enemy had crossed the river.

   Similarreconnaissance, sortie

   Note

   Where the sentinels' round stays inside the defended line, this movement goes out beyond it. Its purpose is information, not protection: learning the ground and finding the enemy. Context usually decides which is meant. A patrol that comes back with word of the enemy's crossing has been outside the outposts, and it went looking for something rather than guarding something.

7. 7
   nouncountable

   A round made along the chain of sentinels and between the posts by a small guard, usually three or four men, to improve security against attacks on the outposts.

   A patrol of three men moved between the posts every two hours through the night.

   The sergeant ordered a patrol along the line of sentries before dawn.

   Similarround

   Note

   The original military round lies at the root of all the word's other uses. It came through French from Old French patrouille, a night-watch, literally "a tramping about", built on patte, "paw" or "foot". The picture is of feet moving steadily along a line of posts. As a mass noun it gives the everyday phrase on patrol (four members of the squadron were on patrol), which names the duty rather than a single round.

8. 8
   nouncountable

   A small unit within a scout troop, usually grouped by rank or age, and ideally made up of six to eight members.

   The scoutmaster split the troop into a patrol for each age group.

   Her patrol won the cooking contest at the weekend camp.

   Note

   Scouting borrowed the military word for its smallest standing team. Lord Baden-Powell of Gilwell's Aids To Scoutmastership (1920) calls forming boys into patrols of six to eight, each under its own responsible leader, "the key to a good Troop". Unlike an army patrol, it is a lasting group rather than a mission, so a scout belongs to a patrol instead of going on one.

Showing meanings only. Show all 8