expedition

From Middle French expédition, and its source, Latin expeditio

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /ɛkspəˈdɪʃən/

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• Rhymes: -ɪʃən

expedition (countable and uncountable, plural expeditions)

1. (obsolete) The act of expediting something; prompt execution.
2. A military journey; an enterprise against some enemy or into enemy territory.
3. (now rare) The quality of being expedite; speed, quickness.
   • 1719, Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe:

     one of them began to come nearer our boat than at first I expected; but I lay ready for him, for I had loaded my gun with all possible expedition […].

   • 1749, Henry Fielding, Tom Jones, Folio Society 1973, p. 331:

     he presently exerted his utmost agility, and with surprizing expedition ascended the hill.

   • 1979, John Le Carré, Smiley's People, Folio Society 2010, p. 33:

     The photographer had photographed, the doctor had certified life extinct, the pathologist had inspected the body in situ as a prelude to conducting his autopsy – all with an expedition quite contrary to the proper pace of things, merely in order to clear the way for the visiting irregular, as the Deputy Assistant Commissioner (Crime and Ops) had liked to call him.

4. (military) An important or long journey, for example a march or a voyage
5. A trip, especially a long one, made by a person or a group of people for a specific purpose

   a naval expedition

   a scientific expedition

   an expedition across the Alps

6. The group of people making such excursion.

expedition (third-person singular simple present expeditions, present participle expeditioning, simple past and past participle expeditioned)

1. (intransitive) To take part in a trip or expedition; to travel.
   • 1950, Sewage and Industrial Wastes Engineering (volume 21, page 588)

     The attendance was given color by the ISO women who graced some of the sessions, attended the social events and expeditioned around the famous spots in Washington and its periphery area.

   • 1998, Greg Child, Thin Air: Encounters in the Himalayas (page 185)

     I feel uprooted from the vital connections to Salley, to home, stranded with only the mountain and my fellow madmen as company. These thoughts appear like a mirage, a hallucination, a symptom of the schizophrenia of expeditioning.

• “expedition” in Douglas Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary, 2001–2019.

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expedition c

1. an expedition, a journey, a mission
2. an office

• expeditionschef