platoon
Americannoun
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a military unit consisting of two or more squads or sections and a headquarters.
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a small unit of a police force.
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a company or group of persons.
a platoon of visitors.
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Football. a group of players specially trained in one aspect of the game, as offense or defense, and used as a unit.
a halfback on the offensive platoon.
verb (used with object)
verb (used without object)
noun
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military a subunit of a company usually comprising three sections of ten to twelve men: commanded by a lieutenant
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a group or unit of people, esp one sharing a common activity, characteristic, etc
Etymology
Origin of platoon
1630–40; earlier plotton < French peloton little ball, group, platoon, diminutive of pelote ball. See pellet, -oon
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Though she brought flying rainbow unicorns and a platoon of plotting penguins to life on screen, there’s more to Castuera’s resume than hyper-imaginative animation.
From Los Angeles Times
He designed his own rehabilitation programme, which he shared with others on social media, before later going back to fight on the front, becoming a senior lieutenant and commander of a rifle platoon.
From BBC
Developing the ability to deploy platoons of robots that can carry out orders without hesitating also speaks to skepticism in Beijing about the reliability of PLA mission commanders.
Sodais, 33, and Sullivan, then a platoon leader, met two years later at a military base in the remote Zabul Province.
From Los Angeles Times
This year, mercenaries began transiting through Bosaso in Somalia, where local sources told AFP a UAE-run section of a military base has hosted platoons of uniformed foreigners, transported in cargo planes.
From Barron's
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
