dragoon
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Topics: Christianity
engineering
government
military
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
politics
tools
war
weaponry
Etymology: The noun is borrowed from French dragon (“dragon (mythological creature); type of cavalry soldier, dragoon”) (originally referring to a soldier armed with the firearm of the same name (noun sense 1.1)), ultimately from Latin dracō (“dragon; kind of serpent or snake”), from Ancient Greek δρᾰ́κων (drắkōn, “dragon; serpent”), possibly from δέρκομαι (dérkomai, “to see, see clearly (in the sense of something staring)”), from Proto-Indo-European *derḱ- (“to see”)). Doublet of Draco, Dracon, dracone, and dragon.
The verb is either derived:
* from the noun; or
* from French dragonner (“to force (someone) into doing something, coerce; to torment (oneself)”), from dragon (noun) (see above) + -er (suffix forming infinitives of first-conjugation verbs).
Inflected forms:
form: dragoons
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: dragoons
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: dragooning
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: dragooned
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: dragooned
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: Synonym of dragon (“a type of musket with a short, large-calibre barrel and a flared muzzle, metaphorically exhaling fire like a mythical dragon”).
pos: noun
tags: historical
examples: [A] Lieutenant of a Troupe of compleat armed French Piſtoliers, is reputed better in degree then a Captaine of an hundred Foot, a Lieutenant of the late inuented Dragoones (being not aboue ſixteene inche Barrell, and full Muſquet bore) the Foot-Captaines equall, and the Lieutenant of a Troupe of Harquebuſsiers or Carbines his immediate younger brother.
gloss: Originally (historical), a soldier armed with a dragoon musket (noun sense 1.1) who fought both on foot and mounted on a horse; now, a cavalier or horse soldier from a regiment formerly armed with such muskets.
pos: noun
tags: broadly
examples: [T]he Lovv-countries haue produced another ſort of Horſe-men, vvhich their experience there haue found out to be of notable vſe, and they call them Dragoons, vvhich I knovv not vvhether I may tearme them Foot-Horſe-men, or Horſe-Footmen: for they are Muſquetiers on horſebacke, and are imployed for the taking and maintaining, or at leaſt for preuenting the enemy from taking of Paſſages or Foords vvhich leade ouer Riuers: […]
[Y]oung Emir-Hamza-mirza Abbas his eldeſt on (inheriting his Uncles vertue as vvell as name) vvith a ſtrong body of Horſe and Dragoons confronting the Baſſa near to Sultany gave him ſuch a bruſh that the Turk retreated as far back as Van: […]
The French persecution more inhuman than ever. The Protestants in Savoy successfully resist the French dragoons sent to murder them.
No man ſhall ever perſuade me, no not the Biſhop of Meaux [Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet] vvith all his Eloquence, that Priſons and Tortures, Dragoons and the Galleys, are proper means to convince the Underſtanding, and either Chriſtian or Human methods of converting men to the true Religion.
A German Dragoon as I thought him, gave me a rude Blovv vvith the Stock of his Piece on the Side of my Head, and vvas juſt going to repeat it, vvhen one of my Men ſhot him dead.
Near the capital lay also the corps which is now designated as the first regiment of dragoons on the English establishment. […] A single troop of dragoons, which did not form part of any regiment, was stationed near Berwick, for the purpose of keeping the peace among the mosstroopers of the border. For this species of service the dragoon was then thought to be peculiarly qualified. He has since become a mere horse soldier. But in the seventeenth century he was accurately described by Montecuculi as a foot soldier, who used a horse only in order to arrive with more speed at the place where military service was to be performed.
I have served as a Dragoon in my day; and a comrade of mine that I was once rather partial to, was, if I don't deceive myself, a brother of yours.
If you want a receipt for that popular mystery, / Known to the world as a Heavy Dragoon, / Take all the remarkable people in history, / Rattle them off to a popular tune.
His forefathers had been, as a rule, professional men—physicians and lawyers; his grandfather died under the walls of Chapultepec Castle while twisting a tourniquet for a cursing dragoon; an uncle remained indefinitely at Malvern Hill; an only brother at Montauk Point having sickened in the trenches before Santiago.
gloss: A man with a fierce or unrefined manner, like a dragoon (noun sense 1.2).
pos: noun
tags: broadly
examples: [T]o my great surprise two persons in the habit of gentlemen attacked me with such indecent discourse as I cannot repeat to you, so you may conclude not fit for me to hear. […] [F]ancy your wife or daughter, if you had any, in such circumstances, and what treatment you would then think due to such dragoons.
The Normans came out of France into England worse men than they went into it, one hundred and sixty years before. […] These founders of the House of Lords were greedy and ferocious dragoons, sons of greedy and ferocious pirates.
gloss: A variety of pigeon, originally a cross between a horseman and a tumbler.
pos: noun
examples: Dragoons were originally bred between a Tumbler and a Horseman; by frequently matching them with the Horseman, they will acquire very great strength and agility. […] One of the principal beauties of the Dragoon is the straightness of the top of its skull, and that of its beak, which ought almost to make a horizontal line with each other.
Since the prevalence of low wages the weaver's garden has disappeared, and his pigeon-cote, even if its timbers have not rotted away, is no longer stocked with carriers, dragoons, horsemen, jacobins, monks, poulters, turtles, tumblers, fantails, and the many varieties of what is in itself a variety—the fancy-pigeon.
gloss: To subject (a Huguenot) to the dragonnades (“a policy instituted by Louis XIV of France in 1681 to intimidate Protestant Huguenots to convert to Roman Catholicism by billeting dragoons (noun sense 1.2) in their homes to abuse them and destroy or steal their possessions”).
pos: verb
tags: French
historical
transitive
examples: She [Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sévigné] appears to have exulted in the extirpation of protestantism in Provence, by the power of her son-in-law, count de Gregnan [i.e., François Adhémar de Monteil, Comte de Grignan]; she even speaks with levity of the sufferings of the huguenots, dragooned into the bosom of the true church.
This was the pious lady [Ninon de l’Enclos] who, in after times, expiated the faults of her youth by dragooning Huguenots into Catholics.
gloss: Chiefly followed by into: to force (someone) into doing something through harassment and intimidation; to coerce.
pos: verb
tags: broadly
transitive
examples: In Politicks, I hear, you're ſtanch, / Directly bent againſt the French; / Deny to have your free-born Toe / Dragoon'd into a VVooden Shoe: […]
The next step was that suggested by Mr. Townsend, of quartering large bodies of troops upon the chief towns in the colonies, and demanding of the several colonial legislatures, a provision for their comfortable support and accommodation. […] Their object was perfectly understood: it was to curb the just and honourable spirit of the people; to dragoon them into submission to the parliamentary claim of taxation, and reduce them to the condition of vassals, governed by the right of conquest.
[A]t any rate, he had shown Hardy that he wasn't to be dragooned into doing or not doing any thing.
For months and months and from one end of the country to the other the whole official force has been engaged in pulling wires to dragoon the party into the renomination of the President.
[T]he union leaders in Pennsylvania are trying to dragoon the most exalted personage in the nation [the President] into a wrangle with which he has no official connection whatever.
gloss: To cause (someone) to be attacked by dragoons.
pos: verb
tags: broadly
historical
transitive
examples: He [Samuel Wilson] says, for example, that he is opposed to locking men up without trial, but he refrains from pledging himself to releasing the suspects. He says nothing about the necessity for dragooning the Irish for abolishing trial by jury.
Related words: dragonnade
Derived words: dragoonade
dragoon bird
dragooner
dragoon pigeon
dragoonable
dragoonage
dragooned
dragooning
undragooned
Translations: