▪ I. deˈploy, n. Mil.
[f. deploy v. Cf. OF. desploi, -ploy, display.]
The action or evolution of deploying.
| 1796 Instr. & Reg. Cavalry (1813) 126 From this situation of the flank march, it is that every regiment is required to begin the deploy, when forming in line with others. 1870 tr. Erckmann-Chatrian's Waterloo 245 When they began to talk of the distance of the deploys. |
▪ II. deploy, v.
(dɪˈplɔɪ)
[a. F. déployer, in OF. desployer, orig. despleier:—L. displicāre (in late and med.L.) to unfold. In its AFr. form regularly adopted in ME. as desplay, display. Caxton used the forms deploye, dysploye after Parisian Fr., but the actual adoption of deploy in a specific sense took place in the end of the 18th c.]
† 1. (in Caxton) trans. To unfold, display. Obs.
| c 1477 Caxton Jason 112 Anon they deployed their saylle. 1490 ― Eneydos xxvii. 96 To sprede and dysploye the sayles. |
2. Mil. a. trans. To spread out (troops) so as to form a more extended line of small depth.
| 1786 Progress of War in Europ. Mag. IX. 184 His columns..are with ease and order soon deploy'd. 1818 Todd, Deploy, a military word of modern times, hardly wanted in our language; for it is, literally, to display. A column of troops is deployed, when the divisions spread wide, or open out. 1863 Life in the South II. i. 11 Other companies were deployed along the stream. |
| fig. c 1829 Landor Wks. (1868) II. 206/2 But now deploy your throats, and cry, rascals, cry ‘Vive la Reine’. 1865 M. Arnold Ess. Crit. ii. (1875) 97 An English poet deploying all the forces of his genius. |
b. intr. Of a body of troops: To open out so as to form a more extended front or line. Also fig.
| 1796 Instr. & Reg. Cavalry (1813) 117 Before the close column deploys, its head division must be on the line into which it is to extend. 1799 Wellington in Gurw Desp. I. 22 The right wing, having deployed into line, began to advance. 1870 Disraeli Lothair lviii. 309 The main columns of the infantry began to deploy from the heights. |
| fig. 1848 Dickens Dombey v, Mrs. Chick was constantly deploying into the centre aisle to send out messages by the pew-opener. 1873 Geikie Gt. Ice Age xix. 249 None of these [glaciers] ever got out from the mountain valleys to deploy upon the low-grounds. |
Hence deˈployed ppl. a., deˈploying vbl. n. and ppl. a.
| 1851 Mayne Reid Scalp Hunt. xxxviii. 292 They behold the deploying of the line. 1863 Kinglake Crimea II. 216 Able to show a deployed front to the enemy. |