coloˈnelling, vbl. n.
[from assumed vb. to colonel: see -ing1.]
A Hudibrastic expression for: Acting or playing the colonel; in later times, sometimes taken humorously as ‘trying to raise a regiment, beating about for soldiers’.
In Hudibras, probably traceable to that early stage of the Civil War when it was carried on with little general plan, and the doings of Colonel This and Colonel That (notably Colonel Cromwell) were conspicuous,—being independent manifestations of warlike energy, not parts of a strategic whole. (Edith Thompson.)
| 1663 Butler Hud. i. i. 14 Then did Sir Knight abandon dwelling, And out he rode a Colonelling. 1691 Southerne Sir A. Love i. i, I robb'd my keeper..and under thy discretion, came a Collonelling after him here into France. a 1745 Swift Songs & Ball. (1807) 106 No subject fit to try your wit When you went colonelling. 1836 Gen. P. Thompson Exerc. (1842) IV. 72 A man is not to go out ‘colonelling’..in search of remote wrongs and dubious grievances. 1853 Stocqueler Mil. Encycl., Colonelling, beating about for soldiers. A familiar phrase. 1859 F. Mahoney Rel. Father Prout 480 A truce to war! a long release From ‘colonelling!’ 1881 Stevenson Virg. Puerisque 89. |