advance guard

See also: advance-guard

English

Alternative forms

• advance-guard
• advanced guard

Noun

advance guard (plural advance guards)

1. A unit or units leading the way of advancing or marching troops, guarding them from ambushes, reconnoitering and pursuing the enemy, etc.
2. An individual soldier in the same role.

Quotations

• Every precaution was taken; and in some of the denser portions of the jungle they regularly felt their way with advance guards and flankers, who, poor fellows, had a most tough job to force their way through the tangled creepers and undergrowth. — G.M. Fenn, "Middy and Ensign", 1883.
• Each attacking column was divided into three parts, a forlorn hope of twenty men leading, which was followed by an advance guard of one hundred and twenty, and then by the main body. — Theodore Roosevelt, "Hero Tales From American History", 1895
• My native land is one of those rugged isles which form the advance-guard of Scotland in the Northern Ocean. — R.M. Ballantyne, "The Crew of the Water Wagtail", 1875

Synonyms

• avant-guard
• vanguard

Translations

leading unit of an army

• Crimean Tatar: avangard
• Dutch: voorhoede (nl)
• Finnish: etujoukot
• French: avant-garde (fr) f
• German: Vorhut (de) f
• Greek:

  Ancient: πρόφυλαξ m (próphulax)

• Macedonian: претхо́дница f (prethódnica)
• Portuguese: guarda avançada f
• Russian: аванга́рд (ru) m (avangárd)

an individual soldier in the same role

• Greek:

  Ancient Greek: πρόφυλαξ m (próphulax)