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
Luggage lined up in Dallas terminals like dwarf soldiers in a nightmare reveille.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 28, 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
In the morning he awakened on a split second and lay waiting for reveille.
From "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck
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
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
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
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
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
