garrison

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English garisoun, also garison,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Old French garison (“defence, protection, provision, store”), also gareison and guerison,^[5][6][7][8] from garir (“to defend, preserve, furnish”),^[5][7][6] a verb of Germanic origin.^[9][10][11] The OED and Hoad give Old High German warjan (“to defend”), and Merriam-Webster werien,^[5][6][3] from Proto-Germanic *warjaną (“to defend, protect”).^{[6][12][13][14]} The Old Northern French form was warison, the source of warison,^[5][15][16] and its modern descendant is French guérison (“cure, recovery, healing”).^[7][15][16] The military sense comes from confusion with Old French garnison (“provision, munitions”), from garnir (“to furnish, provide”), the source of garnish;^[5][7][15] it was borrowed separately as garnison, a body of armed men, in the late 14th century, and garrison displaced it by the 1500s.^[7][4][16]

Earliest recorded meaning

Treasure or payment: about 1250, as garisoun,^[4] or 1297 in the OED, in Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle, with the senses store, treasure and gift.^[5] The Middle English Dictionary quotes it before 1300 in Floris.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The early senses followed the French word: treasure or a gift, until about 1450, and defence, protection or safety, until 1561.^[5] The OED thinks that the specially English sense of a fortress or stronghold, recorded from about 1430,^[5] led to the word being identified with garnison and to its taking over that word's sense of a body of troops;^[5] Ayto likewise dates both concrete senses to the 15th century.^[12] Barnhart records garnysons, a body of armed men, in 1338, and garrison as a fortress in 1410.^[4] In one letter in the Paston Letters, Henry VII wrote both garysson of Frenshmen and garnison of Frenshemen.^[16] The phrase in garrison, after French en garnison, is recorded from 1490,^[5] and the OED's first record of a body of soldiers stationed in a fortress is from 1542.^[5] The verb, to place troops in a town or fortress, followed in 1569.^[5][3][4] Johnson (1755) defined the noun as soldiers placed in a fortified town or castle to defend it, and as a fortified place stored with soldiers.^[17]

Timeline

• c. 1250 – garisoun, treasure, payment.^[4]
• 1297 – store, treasure; a gift (obsolete by 1450).^[5]
• c. 1320 – defence, protection, safety (obsolete by 1561).^[5]
• 1338 – garnysons, a body of armed men.^[4]
• c. 1430 – a fortress or stronghold (1410 in Barnhart).^[5][4]
• 1490 – in garrison.^[5]
• 1542 – a body of soldiers stationed in a fortress or town.^[5]
• 1569 – verb, to furnish with a garrison.^[5][3][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. The troops stationed in a fort, town or other place to defend it.^[10][3][5]
2. A place where troops are stationed; a military post, especially a permanent one: a garrison town.^[10][3][5]
3. (obsolete, 1297–1450) Treasure or a gift.^[5][2]
4. (obsolete, 1320–1561) Defence or protection.^[5][2][8]

Verb

1. To place troops in a fort or town to defend it: The fort was garrisoned with two hundred men.^[10][3][5]
2. To station troops as a garrison.^[3][5]
3. Of troops, to occupy a place as its garrison.^[5]

Word family

• regarrison
• ungarrisoned
• garrison cap
• garrison state

Related words

• garment
• garnish
• warison
• garret
• garage
• ward
• warn
• wary

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
11. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
13. ^ Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
14. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
15. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
16. ^ a b c d Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
17. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.