Definitions

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

  • noun A member of the French national police organization constituting a branch of the armed forces with responsibility for general law enforcement.
  • noun Slang A police officer.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Originally, in France, a man-at-arms; a knight or cavalier armed at all points and commanding a troop; afterward, a member of a company or corps of cavalry; a cavalryman: sometimes also used for soldier in general.
  • noun In France, since the Revolution, one of the corps of national police, a body organized, uniformed, and drilled like soldiers, and considered, in a sense, a privileged corps of the French army: also used for a policeman of a similar corps in some other European countries. See gendarmerie, 2.

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

  • noun (Mil.), obsolete, France One of a body of heavy cavalry.
  • noun An armed policeman in France.

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

  • noun A member of the gendarmerie, a military body charged with police duties.
  • noun Policeman.

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

  • noun a French policeman

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French, from Old French gent d'armes, gendarme, sing. of gens d'armes, mounted soldiers, men-at-arms : gens, people, men (from Latin gentēs, pl. of gēns, clan; see genə- in Indo-European roots) + de, of (from Latin ; see de–) + armes, pl. of arme, weapon; see arm.]

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Examples

  • "Shall I call a gendarme, Monsieur, and have him search for your nurse?"

    The Puppet Crown Harold MacGrath 1901

  • When Rougon heard the word gendarme, he thought he understood her.

    The Fortune of the Rougons ��mile Zola 1871

  • He finished with a gesture of supreme disgust, as if friendship with a gendarme were the basest of crimes.

    The Isle of Unrest Henry Seton Merriman 1882

  • Cuba has served as a kind of gendarme regarding the drug traffic in the

    REPORTERS FROM THE CARACOL NETWORK 1983

  • However, Castro said, not only have we not done this; on the contrary, we have become a kind of gendarme in the Caribbean.

    REPORTERS FROM THE CARACOL NETWORK 1983

  • As this image of the fire station got me rousted by the local gendarme.

    Archive 2009-05-01 2009

  • The instant that you proceed past the sign, an ill-tempered gendarme will materialize, full of Gallic wrath.

    Science Fiction 2010

  • The major contenders in the 2005 Tour de France rode over the legendary Col du Galibier 8,678 feet under the watchful eye of a gendarme in this classic Tom Moran shot from the VeloNews archives.

    Flashback Gallery: The Col du Galibier in the 2005 Tour de France 2011

  • He said the head of the Ivorian gendarme service, the director of police, the chief of staff of the armed forces and the chief of staff of the army have all offered their services to Ouattara.

    Ivory Coast president: Gbagbo will face charges 2011

  • As this image of the fire station got me rousted by the local gendarme.

    staycation 2009

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