garrison
noun
a body of troops stationed in a fortified place.
garrison
1 American
[gar-uh-suhn]
/ ˈgær ə sən /
noun
-
garrisons
plural
-
a body of troops stationed in a fortified place.
-
the place where such troops are stationed.
-
any military post, especially a permanent one.
verb (used with object)
-
garrisons,
present (3rd person singular)
-
garrisoned,
past participle, past
-
garrisoning
present participle
-
to provide (a fort, town, etc.) with a garrison.
-
to occupy (a fort, post, station, etc.) with troops.
-
to put (troops) on duty in a fort, post, station, etc.
Garrison
2
American
[gar-uh-suhn]
/ ˈgær ə sən /
noun
garrison
British
/ ˈɡærɪsən /
noun
-
the troops who maintain and guard a base or fortified place
-
-
the place itself
-
( as modifier )
a garrison town
-
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
garrisonsimple
-
garrisonssimple
-
have garrisonedperfect
-
has garrisonedperfect
-
am garrisoningprogressive
-
are garrisoningprogressive
-
is garrisoningprogressive
-
have been garrisoningperfect progressive
-
has been garrisoningperfect progressive
Past
-
garrisonedsimple
-
had garrisonedperfect
-
was garrisoningprogressive
-
were garrisoningprogressive
-
had been garrisoningperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of garrison
1250–1300; Middle English garisoun protection, stronghold < Old French garison, gareison defense, provision, derivative of garir, guerir to defend < Germanic; compare Old High German warjan
Explanation
A garrison most often refers to a military outpost where troops are stationed to provide protection to an area. The word garrison is also used to refer to the troops stationed there. Garrison is from the Old French verb garir, meaning "defend, protect" is of Germanic origin, so you can see where the noun garrison gets its sense of a stronghold of defense. A great example is Hadrian's Wall, completed in 128 A.D. by the Roman emperor Hadrian. The wall was built across Scotland to protect settlements to the south from invaders, and it was dotted with around two dozen forts that could each hold a garrison of 500 soldiers.
Vocabulary lists containing garrison
The Emancipation Proclamation (1862)
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My Brother Sam is Dead
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The Articles of Confederation (1777)
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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:
His plan to hold his inauguration at a military garrison in the south of the country rather than at the traditional Plaza de Bolívar in Bogotá seems a good start.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 19, 2026
But then, in quick order, came Lincoln’s election to the presidency in November 1860, the secession of the slave states to form the Southern Confederacy, and the attack on the U.S. garrison in Fort Sumter.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 1, 2026
Gao is the army's second-largest military stronghold after Kati, a garrison town near Bamako which is home to several senior junta officials and was targeted in the weekend attacks.
From Barron's ● Apr. 29, 2026
Foreign diplomats and dignitaries have long seen a meeting with the military chief in the garrison city of Rawalpindi near the capital to be a key item on their schedules.
From Barron's ● Apr. 12, 2026
On April 12, 1861, Confederate cannons in Charleston, South Carolina, fired on the U.S. garrison at Fort Sumter in the harbor.
From "Ambushed!" by Gail Jarrow
Garrison called local TV stations and set up interviews with sick senior citizens who live in the park.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 16, 2026
“You don’t just go somewhere and get a prescription and put it in your cabinet,” said Nancy Berlinger, senior research scholar at the Hastings Center for Bioethics in Garrison, N.Y.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 20, 2026
L/Cpl Ryan Rudd, 28, was last seen in the early hours of 15 February on a night out at the New Inn in Selby and did not return to his barracks at Catterick Garrison.
From BBC ● Apr. 10, 2026
Other American paragons of virtue who were publicly opposed at the time: William Lloyd Garrison, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Frederick Douglass.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 6, 2026
The city was not only home to her dad’s literary idol, but Emily’s, too: Garrison Griswold, CEO of Bayside Press and mastermind of Book Scavenger, the coolest book-hunting game in existence.
From "Book Scavenger" by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman
Japan has been steadily fortifying its southwestern islands with missiles and garrisons to defend against attack.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 13, 2026
Since 2019, soldiers have shut down some smaller army bases and moved into larger, fortified garrisons known as "super camps" in an attempt to better resist militant attacks.
From Barron's ● Oct. 11, 2025
Last week the RSF captured desert garrisons on the border with Libya held by the Joint Forces.
From BBC ● Jun. 16, 2025
Russia's military presence in Armenia includes garrisons in two locations and an airbase.
From Reuters ● Oct. 25, 2023
These foreign holdings or “cleruchies” not only put underused land back into taxable cultivation, but also afforded the king what was essentially a countrywide system of garrisons.
From "Circumference" by Nicholas Nicastro
At any given time through the 1980s, nearly 300,000 U.S. forces would have been garrisoned in around 900 sites, ranging from airfields to communications outposts and housing complexes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 13, 2026
A dramatic musical score—like something out of a Marvel movie—plays loudly over clips of officers entering the windows of the garrisoned building, climbing on their laddered megatruck, and breaking the locks to the doors.
From Slate ● May 4, 2024
When microbes try to invade our body through the nose or mouth, they have to get past the tonsils, lumps of tissue garrisoned by immune cells that help fight off the intruders.
From Science Magazine ● Oct. 31, 2023
And we went to the home community in western Ukraine where the brigade was garrisoned before the war, and where many of its families still live.
From BBC ● Sep. 25, 2023
Only three were now garrisoned, a fact that Mance Rayder knew as well as they did.
From "A Clash of Kings" by George R.R. Martin
His father, a retired navy man, spent a year in the 1970s garrisoning Philippine-occupied Thitu Island.
From Washington Times ● May 2, 2023
I am not saying that garrisoning South Vietnam with ground troops would have made the war a sensible enterprise.
From New York Times ● Oct. 21, 2021
One source, the Chandos Herald, says there were 300 men garrisoning the town.
From BBC ● Jul. 7, 2014
All have stepped up sea and air patrols as well as garrisoning isolated atolls and floating patrol bases.
From Reuters ● Oct. 1, 2012
Wellington, who knew the pacific character of the new French government, advised the garrisoning of certain isolated points on the frontier, but thought no further preparation necessary.
From The Political History of England - Vol XI From Addington's Administration to the close of William IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) by George C. (George Charles) Brodrick
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.
