sergeant
Pluralsergeants
- 1A noncommissioned rank in police forces and in armed forces other than navies, the highest in some services; in the British Army, above corporal and below warrant officer.
The sergeant crouched beside the muddy lane and pointed out two sets of tire tracks.
He was promoted to sergeant after six years in the infantry.
Note
Behind the rank is a word for serving: Latin serviēns, "serving," gave Medieval Latin serviens, which could mean a servant, a vassal, a soldier or a court officer, and the word reached English through Old French. As a rank it drops the article after promoted to or made, and it is capitalized before a name: promoted to sergeant, Sergeant Hale. Armies and police forces use it; navies do not.
- 2A bailiff: an officer who carries out the orders of a court.
The court's sergeant arrived with orders to take the debtor's cattle.
The sergeant read out the summons and ordered the tenant to appear before the judge.
Similarbailiff
- 3A lawyer of the highest rank, equal in standing to a doctor of civil law.
The case was argued by a sergeant, as the Court of Common Pleas required.
All other sergeants and barristers indiscriminately (except in the Court of Common Pleas, where only sergeants are admitted) may take upon them the protection and defense of any suitors.
1765, William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of EnglandNote
Here the word belongs to the history of English law. William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–1769) sets it beside barrister: either could take up the defense of suitors in most courts, but the Court of Common Pleas admitted only sergeants. Use it when writing about that older legal order; it is not a title a modern lawyer holds.
- 4Any of various butterflies of the genus Athyma, in the family Nymphalidae, not to be confused with the false sergeants.
A sergeant glided along the forest edge, its dark wings banded with white.
The guide pointed out two sergeants resting on a sunlit leaf beside the trail.
- 5A title sometimes given to servants of the sovereign, as in sergeant surgeon.
As sergeant surgeon, he attended the king through his final illness.
The palace kept a sergeant of the larder to oversee the royal kitchens' stores.
Note
In this title the word sits in front of the job it qualifies: a sergeant surgeon was a surgeon attached to the sovereign's own service. It keeps the old sense of servant, the same root that lies behind the military rank, and it belongs to the history of the British crown rather than to soldiering or policing.
- 6A servant who worked in one of the offices of a monastery.
The abbey's sergeant kept the storerooms stocked and answered to the cellarer.
Lay sergeants did the heavy work of the monastery so the monks could keep their hours of prayer.
Less common meaning
- 7A species of damselfish, Abudefduf saxatilis, also known as the píntano.
Practice
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Origin
From Middle English sergeant, serjent, from Old French sergent, serjant (“sergeant, servant”), from Medieval Latin servientem, from Latin serviēns (“serving”), the present participle of serviō (“serve, be a slave to”); it is a doublet of servant and servient. The /ɑɹ/ pronunciation comes from a widespread Middle English change of er before a consonant, but the spelling was standardized the other way, as with clerk in Commonwealth English.