Gendarme

//ʒɑnˈdɑɹm// noun

noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A member of the gendarmerie, a military body charged with police duties.
  2. 2
    a French policeman wordnet
  3. 3
    A policeman.

    "The US is tempted to play the role of global gendarme because everyone knows that the UN, as it is, lacks the resources and capacity to fill this role."

  4. 4
    A rock pinnacle on a mountain ridge.

    "The previous attempts foundered when they tried to take this gendarme directly."

Synonyms

All synonyms
constablepatrolmanbailiffbeadlebeaglebluecoat

Example

More examples

"I had placed there as gamekeeper, an old retired gendarme, a good man, hot-tempered, a severe disciplinarian, a terror to poachers and fearing nothing."

Etymology

Borrowed from French gendarme, from plural gendarmes, a re-spelling of gens d'armes (“people of arms", "armed people”).

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.