troop

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French troupe,^[2][3][4][5] from Old French trope, also trupe, a band of people, company or crowd, recorded from the 13th century.^[5][2][3] Its further origin is uncertain.^[5][2] Several dictionaries take the French word as a back-formation from troupeau (“flock, herd”), a diminutive of Medieval Latin troppus (“flock, herd”),^[6][7][8][9] which they consider probably Germanic;^[6][7][9] the OED derives the Old French noun from the Latin one directly and compares Old Occitan trop, Spanish tropa and Italian truppa,^[2] and Dictionary.com from a diminutive tropel (“herd, flock”).^[10] Barnhart and Etymonline instead take it from Frankish *throp (“assembly, gathering of people”),^[3][5] related to thorp and to Old High German thorf (now German Dorf), Old Saxon thorp, Old English þorp, Old Norse þorp and Gothic 𐌸𐌰𐌿𐍂𐍀 (þaurp, “field”), from Proto-Germanic *þurpą.^[3][5] Barnhart traces these to Proto-Indo-European *treb-, also the source of Latin trabs (“beam”).^[3] Weekley thought a link with turba (“crowd”) possible.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

A body of soldiers: 1545, in a letter of John Dudley in the State Papers of Henry VIII.^[2][3][4] Ayto notes that the word already had this military sense when it reached English.^[8]

Semantic evolution

Middle English had briefly used the diminutive tropel for a small company of fighting men, about 1400.^[5] The modern word widened from soldiers to any company or band of people in 1584,^[2][3] and to herds and flocks of animals, especially apes and monkeys, from 1587.^[2][5] The plural troops for armed forces in general is recorded from 1598,^[2][5] and in the cavalry a troop became a unit commanded by a captain, the counterpart of an infantry company, from 1590.^[2][5] A drum signal for troops to assemble was a troop from 1688, which is why the ceremony of trooping the colour (1803) is so named.^[2][11][9] Baden-Powell used troop for a company of Scouts in 1908;^[2][5] a single soldier could be called a troop from 1832.^[2] The verb, to gather in a crowd, dates from 1565, in Cooper's Thesaurus;^[2][3] to march in order is from 1592 and to come or go in great numbers from 1610.^[2] Johnson (1755) defined the noun as a company or number of people collected together, quoting "troops of friends" from Macbeth.^[12]

Timeline

• 1545 – a body of soldiers.^[2][3][4]
• 1565 – verb, to gather in a company.^[2][3]
• 1584 – a company or band of people.^[2][3]
• 1587 – a herd or flock of animals.^[2]
• 1590 – a cavalry unit under a captain.^[2]
• 1598 – troops, armed forces.^[2]
• 1688 – a drum signal for troops to assemble.^[2]
• 1781–1835 – a company of performers (now troupe).^[2]
• 1803 – to troop the colour.^[2]
• 1908 – a company of Scouts.^[2][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. (plural) Soldiers; armed forces: The general sent more troops to the border.^[13][4][2]
2. A group of soldiers, especially a cavalry unit corresponding to an infantry company.^[4][13][2]
3. A large group of people or animals; a flock: a troop of baboons.^[13][4][2]
4. A unit of Scouts made up of several patrols.^[13][2]

Verb

1. To move or gather in a group: The pupils trooped into the hall.^[13][4][2]
2. (chiefly British, military) To parade a regiment's flag ceremonially, in trooping the colour.^[13][2]
3. (archaic) To associate or keep company.^[13][4][2]

Word family

• intertroop
• paratroop
• trooper
• troopship
• troop carrier

Related words

• troupe
• thorp

Usage notes

The OED records troop for a company of performers from 1781 to 1835, and Collins calls it an archaic spelling of troupe, which English took from French again in the 19th century.^[2][13][8]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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 z 27 28 29 30 31 32 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
9. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ a b c d e f g h Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins