garrison
noun
a body of troops stationed in a fortified place.
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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
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
Singapore was considered impregnable, but it wasn’t prepared for an attack from the mainland, and its 60,000-strong garrison surrendered on Feb. 8, 1942, the worst defeat in British history.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 27, 2025
A new garrison commander has arrived on the Emerald Coast, a colonel.
From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr
“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
In 1836, William Lloyd Garrison, the antislavery crusader, sat for a cranial exam with the brothers Lorenzo and Orson Fowler, but opted to conceal his identity from the pair of phrenologists.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 29, 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
Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP is serving as finance counsel to the Investor Group.
From Barron's ● Dec. 21, 2025
One night, abolitionist leader William Lloyd Garrison heard Douglass tell his story to a rapt audience.
From "In the Shadow of Liberty" by Kenneth C. Davis
Those shown deploying in coastal areas, he said, were already stationed in garrisons nearby.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 17, 2025
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
It has a major military base in N’Djamena and smaller garrisons in the north and east.
From BBC ● Oct. 4, 2024
Russia's military presence in Armenia includes garrisons in two locations and an airbase.
From Reuters ● Oct. 25, 2023
He hoped the two new garrisons would make a-difference.
From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin
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
“Deep Lake, Sable Hall, and the Long Barrow. All garrisoned with free folk, under the command of our own officers. The Long Barrow will be all women, aside from the commander and chief steward.”
From "A Dance with Dragons" 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
The mountaineers assembled from every direction: they swarmed at every pass, getting in the advance of the Christians, and garrisoning the cliffs, like so many towers and battlements.
From The Moors in Spain by Lane-Poole, Stanley
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.
