troop

Pluraltroops

Formstroops, trooping, trooped

1. 1
   nouncountableplural

   A body of soldiers, or military forces generally; chiefly used in the plural.

   The president promised to bring the troops home by the end of the year.

   A troop of soldiers stood guard at the bridge through the night.

   Similarforces, soldiers

   Note

   Mostly a plural word: the troops are a country's soldiers, and a number before it counts people, so three hundred troops means three hundred soldiers. The singular survives in older and poetic writing, as in Othello's farewell to "the plumed troop, and the big wars", but Macaulay's "His troops moved to victory" is the shape of modern usage.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A local unit of a national Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts organization, made up of one or more patrols of six to eight young people each.

   The troop meets every Tuesday night in the church basement.

   Each patrol in the troop plans its own meals for the weekend campout.

   Note

   In Scouting the weight falls on the small patrols rather than on the troop as a whole. Lord Baden-Powell wrote in 1920 that it is the patrol system that makes the troop, and all Scouting, a real cooperative effort. The troop is the local unit that meets and camps together, with its patrols as the working teams inside it.

3. 3
   nouncollectivecountable

   A company or number of people of any kind; a multitude.

   A troop of reporters followed the senator down the hallway.

   She arrived for the holidays with a troop of cousins in tow.

   Similarband, crowd, throng, group, horde

   Note

   The broadest sense, and the one closest to the word's roots: English has had it since 1545, from French troupe, ultimately from a Frankish word for an assembly or gathering. Any crowd of people can be a troop, as in Macbeth's "troops of friends", the company he knows he will never have in old age.

4. 4
   verbintransitive

   To move together in numbers, or to come or gather in crowds.

   The jury trooped back into the courtroom shortly after noon.

   Visitors troop through the old mansion all summer long.

   Similarfile, stream, flock, march, traipse

   Note

   A verb that nearly always travels with a direction word: people troop in, out, back or through, as when W. B. Maxwell's choir and clergy "trooped out slowly" down the nave. It pictures a group moving together, one after another, rather than a single person going somewhere.

5. 5
   nouncollectivecountable

   A band or group of monkeys.

   A troop of baboons crossed the road in front of our jeep.

   The young male was driven out of the troop and wandered alone for weeks.

   Similarband

6. 6
   verbintransitive

   To proceed onward as if marching, or to push ahead in a hurry.

   With the light fading, the hikers had to troop on toward the ridge.

   He grabbed his coat and trooped off to the station without a word.

   Similarmarch, hurry, trek

7. 7
   nounnonstandardcountable

   One person serving in the military.

   The news report said a single troop was injured when the convoy hit a mine.

   "We lost one troop and two trucks in the ambush," the spokesman told reporters.

   Similarsoldier, trooper

   Note

   A disputed use that turns the counting plural of the military forces sense back into a singular for one person. It shows up in news reports and self-published books, as in "one American troop lightly wounded". Many readers object to it, since a troop is otherwise a group; soldier or trooper is the safe word for a single person.

8. 8
   nouncountable

   A body of soldiers or police detached from a larger force, particularly in horse artillery, armored units, or a state police force.

   The general sent a troop of horse artillery to cover the river crossing.

   A troop of mounted police cleared the square before the parade.

   Similardetachment, unit, squad

9. 9
   nouncountable

   A small cavalry or armored unit commanded by a captain, equivalent to an infantry platoon or company.

   Captain Reyes took command of the troop just before it deployed.

   Each troop in the squadron has its own tanks and scout vehicles.

   Note

   Cavalry and armored forces keep their own names for their units. A troop does the job an infantry platoon or company does, under a captain, and several troops together make up a squadron. The name has outlived the horse: armored units that long ago traded mounts for vehicles still organize their crews into troops.

10. 10
    nouncountable

    A community made up of several meerkat families living together.

    When a hawk flew over, the whole troop dived into the burrows.

    Two families from neighboring burrows joined to form one larger troop.

    Similarmob

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