garrison

noun

1. 1

   A permanent military post.

2. 2

   The troops stationed at such a post.

   My Lord the great Commander of the worlde, […] Hath now in armes ten thouſand Ianiſaries, […] And for the expedition of this war, If he thinke good, can from his garriſons, UUithdraw as many more to follow him.

   For a time, it was the only Royalist stronghold between London and Exeter, but it fell at last when a member of the garrison turned traitor and admitted the Parliamentary besiegers who destroyed it with gunpowder.

3. 3

   Occupants.

   “I came down like a wolf on the fold, didn’t I ? Why didn’t I telephone ? Strategy, my dear boy, strategy. This is a surprise attack, and I’d no wish that the garrison, forewarned, should escape. …”

4. 4

   A military unit, nominally headed by a colonel, equivalent to a USAF support wing, or an army regiment.

verb

1. 1

   To assign troops to a military post.

   Nor was he content with thus strongly garrisoning the fort, but he likewise added exceedingly to its strength by furnishing it with a formidable battery of quaker guns—rearing a stupendous flag-staff in the centre which overtopped the whole city—and moreover by building a great windmill on one of the bastions.

2. 2

   To convert into a military fort.

3. 3

   To occupy with troops.

   'Establishing a land bridge through Mariupol to Crimea would take tens of thousands of troops. So would garrisoning eastern Ukraine.', http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21615605-now-willing-use-russian-troops-more-or-less-openly-eastern-ukraine-vladimir-putin-has

Forms

plural

garrisons

past tense

garrisoned

past participle

garrisoned

present participle

garrisoning

third person singular

garrisons