redcoat - Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Bahuvrihi compound of red + coat.
redcoat (plural redcoats)
- (historical) A British soldier.
1896, A[lfred] E[dward] Housman, “[Poem] XXII”, in A Shropshire Lad, New York, N.Y.: John Lane Company, The Bodley Head, published 1906, →OCLC, stanza 1, page 32:
The street sounds to the soldiers’ tread, / And out we troop to see: / A single redcoat turns his head, / He turns and looks at me.
1906 August, Alfred Noyes, “The Highwayman”, in Poems, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., published October 1906, →OCLC, part 2, stanza I, pages 48–49:
He did not come in the dawning; he did not come at noon; / And out o' the tawny sunset, before the rise o' the moon, / When the road was a gypsy's ribbon, looping the purple moor, / A red-coat troop came marching— / Marching—marching— / King George's men came marching, up to the old inn-door.
- A member of the entertainment staff at Butlin's holiday camps in the United Kingdom, who wear red blazers.
2013 May 16, Mirror News[1]:
The series ran from 1980 until 1988, and won a BAFTA for Best Comedy Series in 1984. It was based on Perry’s experiences working as a Redcoat in Butlins.
- (slang) A fox.
1947, Pennsylvania Game News, page 30:
Hurriedly he made his way around one end of the pond to the spot where he had first sighted the redcoat.
The soldier and entertainment staff uses are sometimes capitalised.
- (British soldier) lobsterback
redcoat (third-person singular simple present redcoats, present participle redcoating, simple past and past participle redcoated)