reveille
Americannoun
-
reveilles
plural
-
a signal, as of a drum or bugle, sounded early in the morning to awaken military personnel and to alert them for assembly.
-
a signal to arise.
noun
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a signal, given by a bugle, drum, etc, to awaken soldiers or sailors in the morning
-
the hour at which this takes place
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of reveille
1635–45; < French réveillez, plural imperative of réveiller to awaken, equivalent to r ( e ) - re- + éveiller, Old French esveillier ≪ Latin ēvigilāre to watch, be vigilant ( ē- e- 1 + vigilāre to watch; see vigil)
Explanation
If you've ever heard an early morning bugle alongside a flag being raised, you know exactly what reveille sounds like. It's meant to wake everyone up in a patriotic way. This word is a modification of French imperative réveillez, which means wake up, or "Awaken!" Appropriately, the noun reveille refers to a bugle call meant to accomplish exactly this. Reveille most often occurs at sunrise in a military encampment or base when a bugler plays a familiar tune to wake up the military personnel.
Vocabulary lists containing reveille
The Color of Water
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The Nickel Boys
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When My Name Was Keoko
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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:
The implied message may as well be a reveille blare: Nothing so minor should get in the way of anyone’s aspirations to serve their country.
From Salon ● Oct. 10, 2025
In childhood, he was an Eagle Scout and a bugle player; at Boy Scout camp, he played reveille in the mornings and taps at night.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 6, 2022
From reveille to lights-out, the boy trumpeters sounded calls for all activities of the day.
From BBC ● Dec. 30, 2021
After reveille just after dawn, an hour is allowed for exercise and showers.
From Reuters ● Dec. 16, 2021
It seems early for that, but reveille sneaks up faster than Pop's wake-up call of scorched eggs and charred bacon.
From "Moon Over Manifest" by Clare Vanderpool
Play a simple melody, he wrote, and he has: about 1,500 songs, show tunes and standards, ragtime and ballads, slow wistful waltzes and brisk up-tempo two- steps, reveries and reveilles.
From Time Magazine Archive
Tents were pitched, and the people of Providence enjoyed the unusual spectacle of a field-camp, of reveilles, dress-parades, firing of artillery by sunrise and sunset, of tattoo and taps.
From Diary of Battery A, First Regiment Rhode Island Light Artillery by Theodore Reichardt
The morning gun had long since sounded, and the reveilles at the forts and camps.
From The Noank's Log A Privateer of the Revolution by W. O. Stoddard
In all garrison towns, guard-calls, and reveilles, and such like, make a fine, romantic interlude in civic business.
From The Pocket R.L.S., being favourite passages from the works of Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson
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.
