Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. An armed attack, especially one made from a place surrounded by enemy forces.
- n. A flight of a combat aircraft on a mission.
- v. To go on a sortie.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A going forth; a sally; specifically, the issuing of a body of troops from a besieged place to attack the besiegers; an outrush of a beleaguered garrison.
- n. Same as postlude.
Wiktionary
- n. military An offensive military mission. Used originally to mean an attack from a fortress, but most commonly used today to describe a single mission by a military aircraft.
- v. transitive To sally.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Mil.) The sudden issuing of a body of troops, usually small, from a besieged place to attack or harass the besiegers; a sally.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a military action in which besieged troops burst forth from their position
- n. (military) an operational flight by a single aircraft (as in a military operation)
Etymologies
- Borrowing from French sortie (Wiktionary)
- French, from feminine past participle of sortir, to go out, from Old French. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“For the military, the cost of a sortie is critical.”
“This plan, which came to be called a sortie, involved the maximum number of tanks, equipped with the Rhino device, that could be brought into position, allowing for the variation of the terrain.”
“The object of the sortie was a vague idea to push forward, if possible, to Versailles.”
“As for the sortie, which is to revictual Paris, by forcing the Prussian lines, it is simply absurd to talk of it.”
“Then the German general struck in with emphasis, 'I regret that I cannot do what you ask,' he said; 'but as to making a sortie, that is just as impossible as the defence of Sedan.”
“The moment the rock was thought to be in a state of sufficient security, the party who composed what might be called the sortie, sallied forth on their anxious expedition.”
“For Goodrich, the sortie was her first humanitarian mission.”
“Scrap the Constellation 'sortie' (Apollo redux) program and replace it with a dedicated lunar base program.”
“The goal of the "sortie" was to learn how to use a compass.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘sortie’.
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EN - archaic words
abide, abjure, abroad, adamant, afield, aforetime, aghast, anon, apace, argent, assuage, aught and 328 more...
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•Words We Use Here That Would Tick Of...
Or, Things That Get a Whole Lot More Fun With an -ie Ending.
See conversation on git, and have at it!
Edit: Many of the following are madeupical, but many are not. See als...wordie, foodie, roadie, cookie, prosie, poetrie, tunie, scriptie, democracie, pompous old gittie, funnie, hippie and 156 more...
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Jesse's random
bathos, dragoman, tessellated, escutcheon, eikon, mondaine, basilisk, ciborium, rubric, machicolation, jet, defalcation and 198 more...
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Thresholds
we are all just passing through.
(boundaries, portals and liminal spaces/times)cockcrow, interface, thin line, portal, postern, littoral, interstice, port, membrane, skin, crepuscule, dawn and 304 more...
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SEDE - military operations
Iran-Iraq War, prevention, increase of readi..., replacement of wa..., rise of readiness, stabilisation, build up, basic training, defence procurement, force modernisation, full mobilisation, grueling training and 387 more...
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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
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wunderkammer's Words
smarmy, bubkes, elucidate, togs, aeolian, carp, kibosh, bosky, ramshackle, mange, harpy, effervesce and 163 more...
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Military Matters
words of mass (or minor) destruction
caltrop, stylet, chassepot, baldric, rewet, blunderbuss, musket, flintlock, howitzer, ordnance, casque, dragoon and 148 more...
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madmelanie's Words
monkey, folderol, snark, snarky, flibbertigibbet, faith, asshat, pirouette, avuncular, exegesis, memento mori, verisimilitude and 379 more...
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Dain's Words
rabble, terminus, archaic, atavism, demiurge, waylay, syzygy, jocoserious, quark, entropy, cinnabar, shamble and 912 more...
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Tuesday words
just the next words that come along
nasality, transignification, lapsarian, disciple, slanguage, atwitter, avast, ahoy, asleep, awake, hymnody, glissade and 573 more...
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norrell's Words
hush, dove, euphoria, nebulae, bryn mawr, darling, phoenix, nape, cream, butterscotch, cosmos, frost and 190 more...
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the Island of the Day Before
phoebus, promontory, succor, indite, sickle, cerulean, tenebrous, specter, bastion, clemency, miasma, nocturlabe and 112 more...
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The Golem's Eye
Words and phrases from Jonathan Stroud's book, The Golem's Eye.
ordure, widdershins, cop, stipple, ostler, struts, minaret, chemise, remonstrate, concussion, wicket, vamoose and 249 more...
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5-0
Hecko, words! I’m so happy I’ve found you. I want to keep you all and never want to lose you again. I hope you like it here.
amscray, thistledown, tine, tinsel, pungent, snarl, wail, lanky, viscid, dawdle, luminous, stow and 2719 more...
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kevincooper's Words
prosopopeia, lisle, magisterial, zeitgeist, zeugma, bloviate, apocryphal, bon mot, cacophony, euphony, brigandier, micturition and 313 more...
Tweets
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