Forms: 4–5 armee, 5 armeye, 5–6 arme, armye, 6 armey, 6–7 armie, 6– army. [a. F. armée, cogn. with Sp., Pg., Pr. armada, It. armata, subst. use of pa. pple. of L. armāre to arm, lit. ‘act of arming, armament, armed force.’ The concrete sense is late in Fr. and Eng., and occurs first in reference to a naval force; cf. ARMADA.]
I. Literal senses.
† 1. An armed expedition by sea or land. Obs.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Prol., 59. In the grete See At many a noble Armee [v.r. arme, armeye] hadde he be.
1489. Caxton, Faytes of Armes, II. xxxviii. 160. They that by the see wol goo, be it in armee or to som other adoo.
1502. Arnold, Chron. (1811), Introd. 37. This yere [21 Edw. IV] ye kinge made a gret Army into Scotland.
1525. Ld. Berners, Froiss., II. xvii. 33. They gette the duke of Burgoyne in great desyre to make an armye into Englande.
2. gen. An armed force (by sea or land); an assemblage of men for belligerent purposes; a host. Obs. exc. when qualified, as in a land-army.
c. 1460. Fortescue, Abs. & Lim. Mon. (1714), 52. If ther come a sodein Armye upon this Lond, by See or by Land.
1556. Chron. Grey Friars (1852), 25. The kynge went to Callys with a grete armé agaynst France.
1603. Knolles, Hist. Turkes (1621), 1314. He sent a navall armie towards the mouth of the river Danowe.
1751. Chambers, Cycl., s.v., A naval or sea Army is a number of ships of war, equipped and manned with sailors and marines, under the command of an admiral.
1865. F. Paley, Æschylus, 113. He gave the instant order to his land-army and rushed away.
3. specifically:
† a. A naval armament, an armada, a fleet. Obs.
1545. (June 24) Lisle, Disp., in State Papers (1830), I. 791. The rest of tharmye comyng out of Thames … sholde be in the Downes.
1588. D. Archdeacon (title), A true Discourse of the Armie [i.e., ‘Spanish Armada’] … assembled in the hauen of Lisbon.
1652. Needham, trans. Selden’s Mare Cl., 270. The King commanded that 21000l. should be paid to his Armie; (For so that Fleet is called every where in English Saxon) which rode at Grenewich.
1751–86. [see 2].
b. A land force; a body of men armed for war, and organized in divisions and regiments each under its officer, the whole body being under the direction of a commander-in-chief or general. (The common use.)
Standing Army, an army of professional soldiers kept permanently on foot, as distinguished from one raised on a special occasion and again disbanded, as were the English armies before the 17th century.
1557–8. Act 4 & 5 Mary, iii. § 5. During the tyme that any Armye or nomber of Men being under a Leiutenaunte, shalbee assembled and continue together.
1579. Gosson, Sch. Abuse (Arb.), 16. Caligula lying in Fraunce with a greate armie of fighting menne.
1605. Bacon, Adv. Learn., II. xvii. § 8. Prejudicial … to the proceeding of an army to go about to besiege every little fort or hold.
1762. Kames, Elem. Crit. (1833), 487. A number of men under the same military command, are termed an army.
1831. Carlyle, Sart. Res., III. iv. After the invention of fire-arms and standing-armies.
4. The Army: the whole of the regular troops or land forces of a state; the military service. (This use came gradually in with the formation of a standing army; its growth may be traced in the title ‘The Army,’ applied to the parliamentary forces c. 1647, to the forces of James II. in 1687, and to those of William III. when it seems to have been fully established.)
[1647. (title) Two Letters of his Excellencie Sir Thomas Fairfax … Published at the instant desire of the Army.
? 1686. James II., in Royal Tracts (1692), 13. Let no man take exception that there are some Officers in the Army not qualified according to the late Tests.]
1698–9. Act 11 William III., viii. An Act … to … determine the Debts due to the Army, Navy, and for Transport-Service.
1712. Steele, Spect., No. 544, ¶ 4. Such Gentlemen as have served their Country in the Army. Ibid. (1714), No. 566, ¶ 4. A Man who goes into the Army a Coxcomb will come out of it a sort of Publick Nuisance.
1860. Ht. Martineau, Biog. Sk. (1876), 204. Entering the army at the age of thirteen.
Mod. The eldest son is in the Army, the second at the Bar. Toast, The Army, Navy, and Volunteers.
II. Figurative and transferred senses.
5. transf. A vast assemblage, resembling an army in number; a ‘host,’ a multitude: a. of men.
c. 1500. Virgilius, in Thoms, E. E. Rom., 22. He raysed a great armey of people.
1525. Ld. Berners, Froiss., II. ccxxvii. Argt. Of the great armye [Heading, assemble] that was made in the citye of Reynes.
1535. Coverdale, 2 Kings v. 15. He [Naaman] turned agayne … with all his armye.
1611. Bible, Ezek. xxxvii. 10. They liued, and stood vp vpon their feet, an exceeding great armie.
Mod. A whole army of waiters was engaged for the banquet.
b. fig. of things. arch.
1596. Spenser, F. Q., V. v. 34. Armies of lovely lookes and speeches wise.
1628. Coke, On Litt., Pref. You shall meet with a whole Army of words.
1675. Traherne, Chr. Ethics, ii. 16. When we can cheerfully look on an army of misfortunes.
1751. Watts, Improv. Mind (1801), 377. The army of my sins rises up before me.
6. (fig. from 3.) A marshalled host.
1593. Shaks., Rich. II., III. iii. 87. Mustring … on our behalfe, Armies of Pestilence.
1611. Bible, Joel ii. 25. The caterpiller, and the palmer worme, my great armie.
1845. Whately, Lett., in Life (1866), II. 77. It is time that these two armies [the two opposed parties in the House of Commons] should as soon as possible be disbanded.
1857. Livingstone, Trav., v. 104. An army of locusts.
7. (fig. or transf. from 2, 3, 4.) A body of men organized for a purpose, or viewed as striving for the advancement of a cause. Hence assumed by such organizations as the Salvation Army, the Blue Ribbon Army.
1543. Te Deum, in Primer. The noble armye of Martyrs do prayse the.
1712. Addison, Spect., No. 465, ¶ 1. Latimer, one of the glorious Army of Martyrs.
1855. Kingsley, Glaucus (1878), 1. The ignoble army of idlers.
1878. Christian, 16 May (heading), Gospel-Temperance in Hoxton. A ‘Blue Ribbon Army.’ Ibid. Hard-working men who have only recently Joined the ‘Blue Ribbon Army.’
1879. Chr. World, 23 May, 330/4. The band of people calling themselves ‘The Salvation Army.’
1883. W. Booth, in Whitaker’s Almanac, 439/1. The Salvation Army was commenced as a Christian Mission in 1865…. In the course of 1878 … the name ‘Salvation Army’ was taken.
III. Comb. and Attrib. (chiefly from sense 4): as army-council, -man; also army-broker, -clothier, -contractor, -furnisher, who carry on their respective businesses on behalf of, or in connection with, the Army; army-corps, a main division of an army in the field; † army-debenture, a security for money lent on behalf of the Army; army-list, an official list of all the commissioned officers of the Army; army-worm, a species of caterpillar, the larva of the cotton-moth.
1868. Gladstone, Juv. Mundi, xi. (1870), 431. The members of the Army-council contend freely in argument with Agamemnon.
1674. Hickman, Hist. Quinquart., 133. Many of those Army-men … gloried … in trampling all Law and Right under foot.
1858. Gen. P. Thompson, Audi Alt., I. lxiv. 247. Being in the position of what was called an army-broker.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., IV. 547. He had become an army clothier.
1817. Coleridge, Biogr. Lit., 242. Whose father had made a large fortune … as an army-contractor.
1870. Pall Mall Gaz., 19 Oct., 11. Accompanied by an army-furnisher.
1702. Lond. Gaz., mmmdcccxxxviii/4. Lost … a Pocket-Book, wherein there was two Army-Debentures.
1814. Scott, Wav., lxi. This good lady had the whole army-list by heart.
1852. Lett., in De Bow, S. & W. States, I. 171. They … lay millions of eggs … and thus they increase until they deserve the name of army worm.
1865. Pall Mall Gaz., No. 192. 6/1. Seriously injured by the army-worm.
