Definitions

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

  • noun An action calculated to frustrate an opponent or gain an advantage indirectly or deviously; a maneuver.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Employment.
  • noun A harmless frolic; a merrymaking.
  • Milit., to move from line into column: the opposite of deploy.

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

  • noun Prov. Eng. & Scot. Sport; frolic.
  • intransitive verb (Mil.) To form a column from a line of troops on some designated subdivision; -- the opposite of deploy.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb military To form a column from a line of troops on some designated subdivision.
  • noun A tactic, strategy, or gimmick.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a maneuver in a game or conversation
  • noun an opening remark intended to secure an advantage for the speaker

Etymologies

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

[Perhaps from employ, employment (obsolete).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Probably abbreviated from deploy.

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