expedition

plural expeditions

1. countableuncountableA military journey; an enterprise against some enemy or into enemy territory.

   Once established in their capital at Nanking, occupied March, 1853, and renamed “Heavenly Capital” (T’ien-ching), the Taipings sent out an expedition to take Peking which again made striking gains initially, but was eventually slowed, isolated, and defeated.

   1960, “The Heavenly Kingdom of the Taipings”, in Wm. Theodore de Bary, Wing-tsit Chan, Chester Tan, compilers, Sources of Chinese Tradition, volume II, New York; London: Columbia University Press, →OCLC, pages 21–22

2. countableuncountablegovernmentAn important or long journey, for example a march or a voyage.
3. countableuncountableA trip, especially a long one, made by a person or a group of people for a specific purpose.

   a naval expedition

   3 more examples

   a scientific expedition

   an expedition across the Alps

   Sir John Franklin's 1845 expedition was lost with two ships and 129 men, inspiring dozens of subsequent expeditions to find and rescue him, none of them successful.

   1989 May, Jeff MacInnis, “Braving the Northwest Passage”, in National Geographic, volume 175, number 5, page 586

4. collectivecountableuncountableThe group of people making such excursion.
5. countableuncountableThe process or activities of performing expediter tasks.
6. archaiccountableuncountableThe quality of being expedite; speed, quickness.

   he presently exerted his utmost agility, and with surprizing expedition ascended the hill.

   1749, Henry Fielding, Tom Jones, Folio Society, published 1973, page 331

   3 more examples

   one of them began to come nearer our boat than at first I expected; but I lay ready for him, for I had loaded my gun with all possible expedition […].

   1719 May 6 (Gregorian calendar), [Daniel Defoe], The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, […], London: […] W[illiam] Taylor […], →OCLC

   He saw the same Turnkey unfetter a man / With but little expedition, / Which put him in mind of the long debate / On the Slave-trade abolition.

   1834 [1799], Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Southey, “The Devil's Thoughts”, in The Poetical Works of S. T. Coleridge, volume II, London: W. Pickering, page 86

   The photographer had photographed, the doctor had certified life extinct, the pathologist had inspected the body in situ as a prelude to conducting his autopsy – all with an expedition quite contrary to the proper pace of things, merely in order to clear the way for the visiting irregular, as the Deputy Assistant Commissioner (Crime and Ops) had liked to call him.

   1979, John Le Carré, Smiley's People, Folio Society, published 2010, page 33

7. countableobsoleteuncountableThe act of expediting something; prompt execution.

   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.

   c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire; London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act III, scene iii

present singular third person expeditions · participle present expeditioning · participle past expeditioned · past expeditioned

1. intransitiveTo take part in a trip or expedition; to travel.

   The attendance was given color by the ISO women who graced some of the sessions, attended the social events and expeditioned around the famous spots in Washington and its periphery area.

   1950, Sewage and Industrial Wastes Engineering, volume 21, page 588

   1 more example

   I feel uprooted from the vital connections to Salley, to home, stranded with only the mountain and my fellow madmen as company. These thoughts appear like a mirage, a hallucination, a symptom of the schizophrenia of expeditioning.

   1998, Greg Child, Thin Air: Encounters in the Himalayas, page 185