English
regiment
Pronunciation
  • (British) IPA: /ˈɹɛdʒɪmənt/
Noun

regiment (plural regiments)

  1. (military) A unit of armed troops under the command of an officer, and consisting of several smaller units; now specifically, usually composed of two or more battalions. [from 16th c.]
    • 1901, Rudyard Kipling, Kim, III:
      It was an old, withered man, who had served the Government in the days of the Mutiny as a native officer in a newly raised cavalry regiment.
    • 2005, Nicholas Watt & Michael White, The Guardian, 28 April 2005:
      As the prime minister insisted that he had "never told a lie" in his life, the Tory leader attacked him for ordering Scottish troops into battle with no warning that their regiments would be disbanded.
  2. (now rare, archaic) Rule or governance over a person, place etc.; government, authority. [from 14th c.]
    • 1576, Abraham Fleming, translating Cicero, A Panoplie of Epistles, XXXIII:
      What place is there in all the world, not subiect to the regiment and power of this citie?
    • 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, IV.8:
      Then loyall love had royall regiment, / And each unto his lust did make a lawe, / From all forbidden things his liking to withdraw.
    • 1832, John Austin (legal philosopher), The Province of Jurisprudence Determined, VI:
      And how is it possible to distinguish precisely […] the powers of ecclesiastical regiment which none but the church should wield from the powers of ecclesiastical regiment (on the jus circa sacra) which secular and profane governments may handle without sin?
  3. (obsolete) The state or office of a ruler; rulership. [14th-17th c.]
  4. (obsolete) Influence or control exercised by someone or something (especially a planet). [14th-17th c.]
  5. (obsolete) A place under a particular rule; a kingdom or domain. [14th-17th c.]
  6. (obsolete, medicine) A regimen. [15th-19th c.]
Translations Verb

regiment (regiments, present participle regimenting; past and past participle regimented)

  1. (transitive) To form soldiers into a regiment.
    • J. W. Powell
      The people are organized or regimented into bodies, and special functions are relegated to the several units.
  2. (transitive) To systematize, or put in rigid order.


This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.003
Offline English dictionary