Also 8–9 cantoonment. [a. F. cantonnement, f. cantonner: see CANTON v. and -MENT.]
1. The cantoning or quartering of troops.
1757. Burke, Abridgm. Eng. Hist., I. iii. Wks. 1826, X. 221 (R.). There were … no places of cantonment for soldiers.
2. The place of lodging assigned to a section of a force when cantoned out; also (often in plural) the place or places of encampment formed by troops for a more permanent stay in the course of a campaign, or while in winter quarters; ‘in India the permanent military stations are so termed’ (Stocqueler, Mil. Encycl.).
1756. Gentl. Mag., XXVI. 554. They repaired to their respective cantonments.
1777. W. Heath, in Sparks, Corr. Amer. Rev. (1853), I. 338. Every purpose … has been answered, by the troops in their present cantonment.
1813. Wellington, Lett., in Gurw., Disp., XI. 311. The distress of the Spanish troops … induced me to order them into cantonments within the Spanish frontier.
1844. H. H. Wilson, Brit. India, I. 287. To withdraw from the cantonment to the Residency.
1844. Regul. & Ord. Army, 270. No Officer is on any account to sleep out of Camp or Cantonments without leave.
3. transf. Quarters; places of occupation.
1837. W. Irving, Capt. Bonneville, I. 166. All hands now set to work to prepare a winter cantonment.
1875. trans. Schmidt’s Desc. & Darw., 227–8. The Mammalia, whose extraction may be inferred with certainty from a comparison of their present cantonments … with the encampments of their former kindred.
