drumhead court-martial

American  

noun

1. a court-martial held, usually on a battlefield, for the summary trial of charges of offenses committed during military operations.

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drumhead court-martial British  

noun

1. a military court convened to hear urgent charges of offences committed in action

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Etymology

Origin of drumhead court-martial

First recorded in 1825–35; so called from the use of a drumhead as a table during the court-martial

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

drumhead court-martial

But for British magnanimity a drumhead court-martial should have taken the place of the hospitality of the Ceylon planters.

From The Great Boer War by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The next day Gen. Ward organized a drumhead court-martial and tried those captured who were not wounded.

From Uncle Daniel's Story Of "Tom" Anderson And Twenty Great Battles by John McElroy

So they give Afiola a sort of drumhead court-martial, and bounced him unanimous, and all the pent-up deviltry of the man came out of him at one lick, like touching off a dynamite cartridge.

From Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas by Lloyd Osbourne

A drumhead court-martial might have seemed tedious and technical in comparison with the sharp brevity of the trials under the ominous cottonwoods.

From Roosevelt in the Bad Lands by Hermann Hagedorn

The elderly and old-fashioned Anglo-Egyptian militarist, with his doctrine and discipline of the barrack-room and the drumhead court-martial, was never regarded by the workers with a shade of suspicion.

From Lord Kitchener by G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton