Synonyms

forced march

American

noun

Military.

any march that is longer than troops are accustomed to and maintained at a faster pace than usual, generally undertaken for a particular objective under emergency conditions.

forced march British

noun

military a march in which normal needs are subordinated to the need for speed

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of forced march

First recorded in 1760–70

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.

See Examples For:

forced march

One word encapsulates this forced march of slaves westward, along with a disproportionate part of the Black role in America’s economic emergence: cotton.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 1, 2025

He had just arrived by bus from Pirot on the Serbia-Bulgaria border, he said, after a gruelling 25-day forced march across Bulgaria.

From BBC ● Nov. 1, 2023

Rescued by U.S. troops in 1945 while on a forced march from Dachau, he spent two years in a displaced persons camp before emigrating to the United States in 1947.

From Slate ● May 21, 2022

And he survived a forced march when his weight dropped from 135 pounds to about 90 pounds before he could escape on April 15, 1945.

From Washington Times ● Nov. 21, 2020

His fallback plan is yet another forced march, this one to the city of Danville, where more than a million rations are supposed to await.

From "Lincoln's Last Days: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever" by Bill O'Reilly

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023