Bahuvrihi compound of .

redcoat (plural redcoats)

1. (historical) A British soldier.
   • 1896, A[lfred] E[dward] Housman, “[Poem] XXII”, in A Shropshire Lad, New York, N.Y.: John Lane Company, The Bodley Head, published 1906, →OCLC ↗, stanza 1, page 32 ↗:

     The street sounds to the soldiers’ tread, / And out we troop to see: / A single redcoat turns his head, / He turns and looks at me.

   • 1906 August, Alfred Noyes, “The Highwayman”, in Poems, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., published October 1906, →OCLC ↗, part 2, stanza I, pages 48–49 ↗:

     He did not come in the dawning; he did not come at noon; / And out o' the tawny sunset, before the rise o' the moon, / When the road was a gypsy's ribbon, looping the purple moor, / A red-coat troop came marching— / Marching—marching— / King George's men came marching, up to the old inn-door.

2. A member of the entertainment staff at Butlin's holiday camps in the United Kingdom, who wear red blazers.
3. (slang) A fox.
   • 1947, Pennsylvania Game News, page 30:

     Hurriedly he made his way around one end of the pond to the spot where he had first sighted the redcoat.

• (British soldier) lobsterback

redcoat (redcoats, present participle redcoating; simple past and past participle redcoated)

1. To work as a redcoat, in Butlin's. Also capital Redcoat