Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To walk steadily and rhythmically forward in step with others.
  • intransitive verb To begin to move in such a manner.
  • intransitive verb To proceed directly and purposefully.
  • intransitive verb To progress steadily onward; advance.
  • intransitive verb To participate in an organized walk, as for a public cause.
  • intransitive verb To cause to move or otherwise progress in a steady rhythmical manner.
  • intransitive verb To traverse by progressing steadily and rhythmically.
  • noun The act of marching, especially.
  • noun The steady forward movement of a body of troops.
  • noun A long tiring journey on foot.
  • noun Steady forward movement or progression.
  • noun A regulated pace.
  • noun The distance covered within a certain period of time by moving or progressing steadily and rhythmically.
  • noun Music A composition in regularly accented, usually duple meter that is appropriate to accompany marching.
  • noun An organized walk or procession by a group of people for a specific cause or issue.
  • idiom (on the march) Advancing steadily; progressing.
  • idiom (steal a march on) To get ahead of, especially by quiet enterprise.
  • noun The border or boundary of a country or an area of land; a frontier.
  • noun A tract of land bordering on two countries and claimed by both.
  • intransitive verb To have a common boundary.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A frontier or boundary of a territory; a border; hence, a borderland; a district or political division of a country conterminous with the boundary-line of another country.
  • To constitute a march or border; be bordering; lie continuously parallel and contiguous; abut.
  • To dwell adjacent; neighbor.
  • To walk with measured steps, or with a steady regular tread; move in a deliberate, stately manner; step with regularity, earnestness, or gravity: often used trivially, as in the expression, he marched off angrily.
  • Specifically, to walk with concerted steps in regular or measured time, as a body or a member of a body of soldiers or a procession; move in uniform order and time; step together in ranks.
  • To move in military order, as a body of troops; advance in a soldierly manner: as, in the morning the regiment marched; they marched twenty miles.
  • To cause to move in military order, or in a body or regular procession: as, to march an army to the battle-field.
  • To cause to go anywhere at one's command and under one's guidance: as, the policeman marched his prisoner to the lockup.
  • noun A measured and uniform walk or concerted and orderly movement of a body of men, as soldiers; a regular advance of a body of men, in which they keep time with each other and sometimes with music; stately and deliberate walk; steady or labored progression: used figuratively in regard to poetry, from its rhythm resembling the measured harmonious stepping of soldiery.
  • noun An advance from one halting-place to another, as of a body of soldiers or travelers; the distance passed over in a single course of marching; a military journey of a body of troops: as, a march of twenty miles.
  • noun Progressive advancement; progress; regular course.
  • noun A military signal to move, consisting of a particular drum-beat or bugle-call.
  • noun In music, a strongly rhythmical composition designed to accompany marching or to imitate a march-movement.
  • noun In weaving, one of the short laths placed across the treadles beneath the shafts of a loom.
  • noun In the game of euchre, a taking of all five tricks by one side.
  • noun The third month of our year, consisting of thirty-one days.
  • noun The celery plant, Apium graveolens, and parsley, Petroselinum Petroselinum. Also merch.
  • noun An abbreviation of Marchioness.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To cause to move with regular steps in the manner of a soldier; to cause to move in military array, or in a body, as troops; to cause to advance in a steady, regular, or stately manner; to cause to go by peremptory command, or by force.
  • intransitive verb obsolete To border; to be contiguous; to lie side by side.
  • intransitive verb to have the same boundary for a greater or less distance; -- said of an estate.
  • noun The act of marching; a movement of soldiers from one stopping place to another; military progress; advance of troops.
  • noun Hence: Measured and regular advance or movement, like that of soldiers moving in order; stately or deliberate walk; steady onward movement.
  • noun The distance passed over in marching
  • noun A piece of music designed or fitted to accompany and guide the movement of troops; a piece of music in the march form.
  • noun (Card Playing) to take all the tricks of a hand, in the game of euchre.
  • intransitive verb To move with regular steps, as a soldier; to walk in a grave, deliberate, or stately manner; to advance steadily.
  • intransitive verb To proceed by walking in a body or in military order.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English marchen, from Old French marchier, from Frankish *markōn, to mark out; see merg- in Indo-European roots.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old French marche, of Germanic origin; see merg- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English marchen from Middle French marcher ("to march, to walk"), from Old French marchier ("to stride, to march, to trample"), from Frankish *to mark, mark out, to press with the foot, from Proto-Germanic *markō, from Proto-Indo-European *mereg- (“edge, boundary”). Akin to Old English mearc, ġemearc "mark, boundary".

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English marche ("tract of land along a country's border"), from Old French marche ("boundary, frontier"), from Frankish *marka, from Proto-Germanic *markō, from Proto-Indo-European *mereg- (“edge, boundary”).

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