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A body of troops, or any naval or military force or post, or the whole territory under the authority or control of a particular officer.

An officer whose business is to provide food for a body of troops or a military post; -- officially called commissary of subsistence. [U. S.] Washington wrote to the President of Congress . . . urging the appointment of a commissary general, a quartermaster general, a commissary of musters, and a commissary of artiller…

A subdivision of a regiment of troops under the command of a captain, numbering in the United States (full strength) 100 men.

To gather or unite in a crowd or company. [A Latinism] "In one troop compelled." Dryden.

To strive earnestly to hold or maintain; to struggle to defend; as, the troops contested every inch of ground.

division or apportionment among a number; a suitable share; proportion; esp., a quota of troops. From the Alps to the border of Flanders, contingents were required . . . 200,000 men were in arms. Milman.

d the forced contributions paid by luckless peasants, enabled him to keep his straggling troops together. Motley.

A change of front, as a body of troops attacked in the flank.

st, dire was the din of war. Philips. Their generals have not been able to cope with the troops of Athens. Addison.

r their good dinners. -- Cordon sanitaire (kd" s Etym: [F., sanitary cordon], a line of troops or military posts around a district infected with disease, to cut off communication, and thus prevent the disease from spreading.

A troop of cavalry; -- so called from its being accompanied by a cornet player. [Obs.] "A body of five cornets of horse." Clarendon.

An evolution by which a body of troops change front or reverse the direction of march while retaining the same men in the front rank; also, a movement by which the rear rank becomes the front one, either with or without changing the right to the left.

at a glance the weakness or strength of a military position, of a certain arrangement of troops, the most advantageous position for a battlefield, etc.

Any position giving the enemy such advantage that the troops occupying it must either surrender or be cut to pieces. Farrow.

sold short does in order to protect himself. -- Covering party (Mil.), a detachment of troops sent for the protection of another detachment, as of men working in the trenches. -- To cover into, to transfer to; as, to cover into the treasury.

The arrangement of a body of troops, either forward or rearward, so as to form a line nearly perpendicular to the general line of battle.

of damsels she was gone, In shady walks the scorching heat to shum. Dryden. Sometimes a troop of damsels glad, . . . Goes by to towered Cameleot. Tennyson.

Attended or beset with danger; full of risk; perilous; hazardous; unsafe. Our troops set forth to-morrow; stay with us; The ways are dangerous. Shak. It is dangerous to assert a negative. Macaulay.

he orb of day. [Poetic] So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed, And yet anon repairs his drooping head, And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore Flames in the forehead of the morning sky. Milton.

; to lure into a net or snare; to entrap; to insnare; to allure; to entice; as, to decoy troops into an ambush; to decoy ducks into a net. Did to a lonely cot his steps decoy. Thomson. E'en while fashion's brightest arts decoy, The heart, distrusting, asks if this be joy. Goldsmith.