march - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

From Middle English marchen, from Middle French marcher (“to march, walk”), from Old French marchier (“to stride, to march, to trample”), from Frankish *markōn (“to mark, mark out, to press with the foot”), from Proto-Germanic *markōną (“to mark”). Akin to Old English mearc, ġemearc (“mark, boundary”). Compare mark, from Old English mearcian.

Compare typologically Russian сле́довать (slédovatʹ) (akin to след (sled)). Also compare пятно́ (pjatnó) (<~ пята́ (pjatá)).

march (plural marches)

Soldiers marching in the UK.

  1. A formal, rhythmic way of walking, used especially by soldiers, by bands, and in ceremonies.
  2. A journey so walked.
    Hypernym: journey
  3. A political rally or parade.
    Synonyms: protest, parade, rally
    • 2009 October 21, Dennis Hevesi, “Jack Nelson, Journalist, Dies at 80”, in The New York Times, retrieved 12 June 2014:
      Mr. Nelson covered the Selma-to-Montgomery freedom marches, including Bloody Sunday, on March 7, 1965, when 600 marchers were attacked with billy clubs and tear gas.
  4. Any song in the genre of music written for marching (see Wikipedia's article on this type of music)
  5. Steady forward movement or progression.
    Synonyms: process, advancement, progression
    the march of time
  6. (euchre) The feat of taking all the tricks of a hand.

formal, rhythmic way of walking

political rally or parade

song in the genre of music written for marching

steady forward movement or progression

march (third-person singular simple present marches, present participle marching, simple past and past participle marched)

  1. (intransitive) To walk with long, regular strides, as a soldier does.
    • 1864, United States War Department, The 1864 Field Artillery Tactics, Stackpole Books, published 2005, →ISBN, page 120:
      The column marching in double file, the instructor commands: […]
  2. (transitive) To cause someone to walk somewhere.
    • 1967, Barbara Sleigh, Jessamy, Sevenoaks, Kent: Bloomsbury, published 1993, →ISBN, page 84:
      The old man heaved himself from the chair, seized Jessamy by her pinafore frill and marched her to the house.
  3. To go to war; to make military advances.
    • 1746, Charles Pinot Duclos, The history of Lewis xi. king of France. Transl, page 169:
      The armies drawing constantly nearer to each other, the king advised with his council, whether he should march against the Britons, or sall upon the count of Gharolois.
  4. (figurative) To make steady progress.
    • 1981 December 27, Wade Nichols, “Victorian Imperialism”, in Gay Community News, volume 9, number 23, page 5:
      Some say history repeats itself, that time is cyclical. Others cling to the notion of progress and change over time. Apparently Nancy Walker marches to a different drummer — marches backwards, that is. Her ideas on art and society seem quaint and odd on the one hand and, on the other, petty and regressive.

walk with long, regular strides

go to war; make military advances

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

march (plural marches)

  1. (now archaic, historical, often plural) A border region, especially one originally set up to defend a boundary.
    Synonyms: frontier, marchland, borderland
    Coordinate terms: county palatinate, county palatine
    • 1819, Lord Byron, Don Juan, section IV:
      Juan's companion was a Romagnole, / But bred within the March of old Ancona […].
  2. (historical) A region at a frontier governed by a marquess.

Both march (noun) and land (noun) are predisposed idiomatically to be used in the plural such that a single region is conceived as a collection of smaller locales; thus, in the marches, in the borderlands, and in the badlands are often not different denotationally from in the march, in the borderland, and in the badland although they are trivially different grammatically and connotatively.

border region

region at a frontier governed by a marquess

march (third-person singular simple present marches, present participle marching, simple past and past participle marched)

  1. (intransitive) To have common borders or frontiers

From Middle English merche, from Old English merċe, mereċe, from Proto-West Germanic *marik, from Proto-Indo-European *móri (“sea”). Cognate Middle Low German merk, Old High German merc, Old Norse merki (“celery”). Compare also obsolete or regional more (“carrot or parsnip”),[1] from Proto-Indo-European *mork- (“edible herb, tuber”).

march (plural marches)

  1. (obsolete) Smallage.
  1. ^ “march, n.1.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, September 2000.

From English March.

march (Bengali script মার্চ)

  1. March

From French marche, derived from the verb marcher (“to march”). The interjection is borrowed from the French imperative of this verb.

march c (singular definite marchen, plural indefinite marcher)

  1. march

march

  1. march! (an order)

From Middle Welsh march, from Proto-Brythonic *marx, from Proto-Celtic *markos.

march m (plural meirch, feminine caseg)

  1. horse, steed, stallion

Mutated forms of march

radical soft nasal aspirate
march farch unchanged unchanged

Note: Certain mutated forms of some words can never occur in standard Welsh.
All possible mutated forms are displayed for convenience.