Citations:dragoon

English citations of dragoon

English

Verb

					1817 1858 1872	1906
ME «	15th c.	16th c.	17th c.	18th c.	19th c.	20th c.	21st c.

(Christianity, French politics, historical) To subject (a Huguenot) to the dragonnades (“a policy instituted by Louis XIV of France in 1681 to intimidate Protestant Huguenots to convert to Roman Catholicism by billeting dragoons (noun sense 1.2) in their homes to abuse them and destroy or steal their possessions”).
(by extension)
1. Chiefly followed by into: to force (someone) into doing something through harassment and intimidation; to coerce.
  - 1817, William Wirt, “Section III”, in Sketches of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry, Philadelphia, Pa.: James Webster, […]; William Brown, […], →OCLC, pages 78–79:
    The next step was that suggested by Mr. Townsend, of quartering large bodies of troops upon the chief towns in the colonies, and demanding of the several colonial legislatures, a provision for their comfortable support and accommodation. […] Their object was perfectly understood: it was to curb the just and honourable spirit of the people; to dragoon them into submission to the parliamentary claim of taxation, and reduce them to the condition of vassals, governed by the right of conquest.
  - 1858 — "The President's Prophecy of Peace." The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2. Number 1. Page 114.
    To maintain the supremacy of this usurpation, and the Draconic laws made under it, Mr. Pierce poured in the squadrons of the Republic, to dragoon the rebellious freemen into obedience to what their souls abhorred, and what their reason told them was of no more just binding force upon them than an edict of the Emperor of China.
  - 1872 July 22, Carl Schurz, “Why anti-Grant and pro-Greeley”, in Speeches, Correspondence and Political Papers of Carl Schurz […], volumes II (December 13, 1870 – February 27, 1874), New York, N.Y.;London: G[eorge] P[almer] Putnam’s Sons; The Knickerbocker Press, published 1913, page 405:
    For months and months and from one end of the country to the other the whole official force has been engaged in pulling wires to dragoon the party into the renomination of the President.
    Speech at the Temple, St. Louis, Mo., July 22, 1872, published in the Daily Globe (St. Louis, Mo.; 23 July 1872).
  - 1906 May 4, “No presidential intervention this time”, in The Sun, volume LXXIII, number 246, New York, N.Y.: The Sun Printing and Publishing Association, →OCLC, page 6, column 3:
    [T]he union leaders in Pennsylvania are trying to dragoon the most exalted personage in the nation [the President] into a wrangle with which he has no official connection whatever.