Etymologically
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army

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: UK /ˈɑː.mi/, US /ˈɑːr.mi/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English armee, borrowed from Old French armée (“armed troop, armed expedition”),[2][3][4] from Medieval Latin armāta (“armed force”),[2][4][3] from Latin armāta, the feminine of armātus, past participle of Latin armāre (“to arm”),[2][4][5] from arma (“tools, weapons”),[2][4] the source of arm in the sense “weapon”.[2] Medieval Latin armāta also gave armada.[5][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

An armed expedition by sea or land: about 1386,[7] or about 1387–95, in Chaucer's prologue to the Canterbury Tales.[3]

Semantic evolution

It was originally used of expeditions by sea or land,[2] and an armed force in general is from about 1460.[7] A naval force, a fleet, is from 1545 and is obsolete.[7] “A host, multitude” is by about 1500,[2] and a body of men armed and organized for war on land from 1557[7] or the 1550s.[2] The whole land forces of a state, the Army, is from 1647,[7] and the restriction to land forces by the late 18th century.[2] The Old English words for an army were here, preserved in harry and harrier, and fierd, related to faran “to travel”; in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle here generally meant the invading Vikings and fierd the local defence.[2]

Timeline

  • c. 1386 – an armed expedition.[7]
  • c. 1460 – an armed force.[7]
  • c. 1500 – a host, multitude.[2]
  • 1545 – a fleet.[7]
  • 1557 – a land force.[7]
  • 1647 – the Army of a state.[7]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A large organized body of soldiers for war on land.
  2. The land forces of a country as a whole.
  3. A large military unit made up of two or more corps.
  4. A large group of people or animals; a multitude.
  5. An organized group working for a cause: the Salvation Army.

Word family

  • armyworm
  • army ant
  • army brat
  • army cutworm
  • Blue Army
  • field army
  • General of the Army
  • Red Army

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  5. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  6. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press