dragoon

English

Etymology

Borrowed from French dragon. Doublet of Draco and dragon.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dɹəˈɡuːn/

  • Audio (UK)

    (file)

• Rhymes: -uːn

Noun

dragoon (plural dragoons)

1. (military) A horse soldier; a cavalryman who uses a horse for mobility, but fights dismounted.
   • 1852 March – 1853 September, Charles Dickens, Bleak House, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1853, →OCLC, page 602:

     I have served as a Dragoon in my day; and a comrade of mine that I was once rather partial to, was, if I don't deceive myself, a brother of yours.

   • 1881, W. S. Gilbert, Patience:

     If you want a receipt for that popular mystery,
     Known to the world as a Heavy Dragoon -
     Take all the remarkable people in history,
     Rattle them off to a popular tune!

   • 1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter II, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:

     His forefathers had been, as a rule, professional men—physicians and lawyers; his grandfather died under the walls of Chapultepec Castle while twisting a tourniquet for a cursing dragoon; an uncle remained indefinitely at Malvern Hill; […].

2. A carrier of a dragon musket.
3. A variety of pigeon.
   • 1829, William Clarke, The Boy's Own Book:

     Dragoons were originally bred between a Tumbler and a Horseman: by frequently matching them with the Horseman, they will acquire very great strength and agility

Coordinate terms

soldier

• cavalryman
• cuirassier
• hussar
• lancer
• trooper
• uhlan
• yeoman

 

Derived terms

• dragoon bird

Translations

horse soldier

• Albanian: kalorës (sq)
• Arabic: فارِس‎ (ar) m (fāris)
• Armenian: դրագուններ (dragunner)
• Azerbaijani: draqun
• Belarusian: драгун m (drahun)
• Bulgarian: драгун m (dragun)
• Catalan: dragó (ca) m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 龍騎兵／龙骑兵 (lóngqíbīng)

• Czech: dragoun (cs) m
• Danish: dragon (da) c
• Dutch: dragonder (nl)
• Esperanto: dragono
• Estonian: tragun
• Finnish: rakuuna (fi)
• French: dragon (fr) m
• Georgian: დრაგუნი (draguni)
• German: Dragoner (de) m
• Greek: δραγόνος (el) m (dragónos)
• Hebrew: דרגון‎ m (dragún)
• Hungarian: dragonyos (hu)
• Icelandic: dragóni m
• Ido: dragono (io)
• Indonesian: dragon (id)
• Irish: dragún m
• Italian: dragone (it) m
• Japanese: 竜騎兵 (ja) (ryūgihei), ドラグーン (doragūn)
• Korean: 용기병 (yonggibyeong)
• Latvian: dragūns m
• Lithuanian: dragūnas m
• Macedonian: драгун m (dragun)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: dragon m

  Nynorsk: dragon m

• Persian: اسوار‎ (fa) (asvâr)
• Polish: dragon (pl) m
• Portuguese: dragão (pt) m
• Romanian: dragon (ro) m
• Russian: драгу́н (ru) m (dragún)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: драгун m

  Roman: dragun (sh) m

• Slovak: dragún m
• Slovene: dragonec (sl) m
• Spanish: dragón (es) m
• Swedish: dragon (sv) c
• Tagalog: dragun
• Turkish: ağır süvari (tr)
• Ukrainian: драгу́н m (drahún)
• Vietnamese: long kỵ binh
• Volapük: (♂♀) drägun (vo), (♂) hidrägun, (♀) jidrägun, (obsolete) dragan
• Welsh: dragŵn m

carrier of a dragon musket

variety of pigeon

• French: dragon (fr) m, Dragon (fr) m, pigeon dragon m, pigeon Dragon m, pigeon bec anglais (fr) m
• German: Dragonertaube f, Dragoner-Taube f, Dragoner (de) m, Drachentaube f, Drachen-Taube f, Dragoner-Bagdette f

Further reading

• dragoon on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Verb

dragoon (third-person singular simple present dragoons, present participle dragooning, simple past and past participle dragooned)

1. (transitive) To force (someone) into doing something; to coerce.

   Synonym: compel

2. (transitive) To surrender (a person) to the fury of soldiers.

Related terms

• dragooner

Translations

to force someone into doing something; to coerce

• Bulgarian: принуждавам (bg) (prinuždavam)
• Finnish: pakottaa (fi)
• Spanish: presionar (es)

Anagrams

• gadroon