brigade

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A military unit consisting of a variable number of combat battalions or regiments.
• noun A US Army administrative and tactical unit composed of a headquarters unit, at least one unit of infantry or armor or both, and designated support units. A brigade can be commanded by a brigadier general or by a colonel.
• noun A group of persons organized for a specific purpose.
• transitive verb To form into a brigade.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun A party or division of troops or soldiers, whether cavalry or infantry, regulars or militia, consisting of several regiments, squadrons, or battalions, under the command of a brigadier, or brigadier-general.
• noun A body of individuals organized, generally wearing a uniform, and acting under authority: as, a fire brigade.
• To form into a brigade or into brigades: as, regiments of militia are brigaded with regiments of the line.
• Hence To arrange or embody in a single collection or group; group together, as in zoölogy, under a single name.
• noun In zoology, a division of no fixed value, used in the sense of ‘cohort,’ as a convenient term for assemblages of animals which may not be included in any of the divisions commonly employed.
• noun A small squad of engineers or of other technical troops: as, the full sap was executed by a brigade of eight sappers.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun (Mil.) A body of troops, whether cavalry, artillery, infantry, or mixed, consisting of two or more regiments, under the command of a brigadier general.
• noun Any body of persons organized for acting or marching together under authority.
• noun an officer whose duty is to inspect troops in companies before they are mustered into service.
• noun an officer who may be attached to a brigade to assist the brigadier in his duties.
• transitive verb (Mil.) To form into a brigade, or into brigades.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun A group of people organized to perform a common purpose. e.g. a work brigade, a fire brigade
• noun military Military unit composed of several regiments (or battalions) and including soldiers from different arms of service.
• verb To form troops into a brigade

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• verb form or unite into a brigade
• noun army unit smaller than a division