WORD FOR THE DAY

Your word for today is: martinet, n.4 and adj.

martinet, n.4 and adj.

Pronunciation: Brit. /ˌmɑːtᵻˈnɛt/,  U.S. /ˈˌmɑrtnˈˌɛt/

Etymology: < the name of Jean Martinet (d. 1672), French soldier, whose attention to drill and training as Inspector-General of the infantry helped to shape the regular army of Louis XIV.

A. n.4

†1.  Mil. The system of military drill devised by Martinet. Obs.

1677  W. Wycherley Plain-dealer iii. 52 What, d'ye find fault with Martinet?.'tis the best exercise in the World.

 2.

 a.  Originally: a person who leads others in military drill. Later: a military or naval officer who is especially concerned with strictness of discipline; (gen.) a rigid, inflexible, or merciless disciplinarian.

1718  J. Breval Play is Plot ii. i. 24 Machone. Make your Exercise, come—join your Left Hand to your Piece... Peter. A brave Martinet!

1737 London Mag. 376/1 Commodus..was properly what we call, in modern Language, a Martinet.

1779  J. Moore View Soc. France (1789) I. xxxix. 339 Let our Martinets say what they please.

1812  J. West Loyalists 52, I wish..you could accompany me to see actual service; you would then feel a just contempt for military martinets and parade exercise.

1847  B. Disraeli Tancred I. ii. vii. 190 She knew that the fine ladies..were moral martinets with respect to any one not born among themselves.

1868  Ld. Bloomfield in  Lady G. Bloomfield Remin. (1883) II. xix. 320 He is considerate, strict but not a martinet.

1888 Poor Nellie 300 A true-born martinet never thinks he is at all severe.

1921  L. Strachey Queen Victoria i. 8 Under the influence of military training,..at first a disciplinarian and at last a martinet.

1976  ‘J. Herriot’ Vets might Fly (1977) xiv. 125 Flight Sergeant Blackett was an unsmiling martinet of immense natural presence.

1986  R. Thomas White Dove vii 168 The grey, starched martinet in her office lined with bound copies of nursing journals.

†b.  A person who acts with precision; an automaton. Obs. rare.

1853  E. K. Kane U.S. Grinnell Exped. 254 We had drilled with knapsack and sledge, till we were almost martinets in our evolutions on the ice.

 B. adj.
 (attrib. and appositive).

Of an idea or trait: characteristic of a martinet. Of a person: that is a martinet.

1814  Scott Waverley III. v. 60 A sort of martinet attention to the minutiæ and technicalities of discipline.

a1854  Ld. Cockburn Memorials (1856) i. 30 Martinet dowagers and venerable beaux acted as masters and mistresses of ceremonies.

1873  H. Spencer Study Sociol. vii. 163 Protests like those made against martinet riding regulations..and against our ‘ridiculous drill-book’.

1903  A. Ainger Crabbe viii. 145 The martinet father and his poor crushed wife.

1910 Encycl. Brit. I. 560/1 It was a time of government on martinet principles.

1980  V. S. Pritchett Tale Bearers 172 His martinet behaviour with his wife who leaves her clothes on the floor.

Derivatives

 ˈmartinetdom n. government or rule characterized by military discipline.

1866 Cornhill Mag. Nov. 554 Educated in the traditions of military martinetdom which Frederick the Great had handed down to his successors as the basis of Prussia's greatness.

 ˈmartinetship n. rigidly disciplinarian rule.

1827  H. Smith Tor Hill (1838) II. 236 No garrison had ever been governed with so rancorous and unrelenting a martinetship.

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