Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A body of French gendarmes.
- noun Slang A group of police officers.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Formerly, in France, a body of cavalry, first organized under this name by Charles VII.; cavalry in general. The special corps of gendarmerie of the army were suppressed in 1778, excepting the Scotch company, the most ancient.
- noun The armed police of France, consisting of mounted and unmounted gendarmes, first organized in 1790 as a standing militia for the enforcement of law and the preservation of order.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The French police force; the body of gendarmes or gendarmes collectively.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
military body charged with police duties among the civilian population.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun French police force; a group of gendarmes or gendarmes collectively
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Diplomats explained that several EU countries were expected to send "gendarmerie" - type effectives, because such forces are most suited to quick deployment.
EurActiv.com 2008
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The gendarmerie is the elite paramilitary force of the Congo.
In the Shadow of Freedom Tchicaya Missamou 2010
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Blue as the gendarmerie were the waves of the sea,
Good Taste Is the Worst Vice : Ange Mlinko : Harriet the Blog : The Poetry Foundation 2007
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What is necessary now is to train and equip more Iraqi security forces, and we have proposed to train Iraqi gendarmerie, that is, military force.
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Next day little boys were scraping the village over like fowls in a farmyard, getting a chip 'ere an' a shaving there, an 'making themselves such a nuisance that there was talk of calling the gendarmerie out.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, 1920-03-20 Various
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Fully aware that he was regularly and systematically deceived by the ordinary officials, he formed a body of well-paid officers, called the gendarmerie, who were scattered over the country, and ordered to report directly to his Majesty whatever seemed to them worthy of attention.
Russia Donald Mackenzie Wallace 1880
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The U.S., which occupied Haiti for the next 19 years, disbanded the army and created a replacement called the gendarmerie or "garde," which fought alongside the Marines against Haitian guerrillas who opposed the U.S. presence.
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Francis I. had the advantage in artillery and in heavy cavalry, called at that time the gendarmerie, that is to say, the corps of men-at-arms in heavy armor with their servants; but his troops were inferior in effectives to the Imperialists, and Charles V. 's two generals, Bourbon and Pescara, were, as men of war, far superior to
A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times, Volume 4 1830
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Kılıç calling the gendarmerie first after his release by the PKK instead of the police has led to further suspicion about his links to the clandestine organization.
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"He called the gendarmerie the equivalent of 10 times a day, seven days a week, which suggests something abnormal going on," said plaintiff attorney Orhan Kemal Cengiz.
unknown title 2009
chained_bear commented on the word gendarmerie
"Gendarmerie, were a heavy cavalry formerly used in the French armies; the term formerly signified men in complete armour."
October 9, 2008