cavalry

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French cavallerie,^[2][3][4] from Italian cavalleria (“mounted militia, horsemanship, knighthood”),^[5][6] formed on cavaliere (“horseman, knight”),^[5][7] or directly on cavallo (“horse”).^[3][8] The Italian word goes back to Late Latin caballārius (“horseman”), from Latin caballus (“horse, nag”).^[5][2] Klein calls caballus probably a loanword from a language of Asia Minor or the Balkans and compares Ancient Greek καβάλλης (kabállēs, “horse”) and Old Church Slavonic кобыла (kobyla, “mare”).^[9][5] The native French form of the same word was chevalerie, the source of chivalry.^[2][4] The word for a mounted army before the Norman Conquest was Old English horshere.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Barnhart and Merriam-Webster date the word, spelled cavallery, to 1546.^[5][7] The OED's first examples are from 1591: a body of mounted soldiers, in Garrard and Hitchcock's Arte of Warre, and horsemanship, in Harington's Orlando Furioso.^[2] Etymonline dates it to the 1590s.^[6]

Semantic evolution

Until the mid 17th century the word could also mean horsemanship or knighthood, much like chivalry;^[2][7][10] Weekley notes that it was often used for chivalry in the 16th century.^[10] The OED explains the shift of stress: Massinger (1632) stressed the second syllable, but spellings point to stress on the first, which produced the shortened cavalry in the middle of the 17th century.^[2] Johnson (1755) defined it as horse troops.^[11] From the late 17th century it could mean horses or riders in general (a1695).^[2] When armies gave up horses, the name passed to the armoured or motorized units that took their role.^[12][3]

Timeline

• 1546 – cavallery, in Barnhart and Merriam-Webster.^[5][7]
• 1591 – mounted soldiers as part of an army.^[2]
• 1591–1670 – horsemanship (obsolete).^[2]
• 1601–1652 – knighthood, an order of chivalry (obsolete).^[2]
• mid 17th century – the shortened form cavalry.^[2]
• a1695 – horses or riders in general.^[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. (especially formerly) Soldiers who fight on horseback; the part of an army made up of mounted troops.
2. The armoured or motorized units of a modern army.
3. (obsolete) Horsemanship; knighthood.

Word family

• cavalryman
• air cavalry

Related words

• cavalier
• chivalry
• cavalcade
• Calvary

Usage notes

Dictionary.com lists cavalry together with Calvary, the hill of the crucifixion, as words that are easily confused.^[13] A pronunciation with the l before the v (/ˈkæl.və.ri/) is heard but is labelled nonstandard.^[7]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
13. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House