martinet

plural martinets

1. governmentA strict disciplinarian.

   The same Aubrey deLint I'd dismissed for years as a 2-D martinet knelt gurneyside to squeeze my restrained hand and say ‘Just hang in there, Buckaroo,’ […]

   1996, David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest […], Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Little, Brown and Company, →ISBN, page 15

   2 more examples

   Captain Edward Carlisle, soldier as he was, martinet as he was, felt a curious sensation of helplessness seize upon him as he met her steady gaze, her alluring smile ; he could not tell what this prisoner might do.

   1910, Emerson Hough, chapter I, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC

   In Seattle, he was replaced by a martinet from Annapolis, a man so vain and incompetent, so impatient with advice from experienced sailors and sure of his own right way, that, when the Hull set sail for the South Pacific, twenty men went AWOL, certain that to ship with this man was a death sentence.

   2008, Greil Marcus, “Tied to History”, in The Threepenny Review

2. figurativelyAnyone who lays stress on a rigid adherence to the details of discipline, or to forms and fixed methods or rules.

   Before I met Mr. Bowen Cooke I had been given to understand that he was of a reserved nature, and on occasion could be a "bit of a martinet"; [...].

   1942 July-August, Chas. S. Lake, “Some C.M.Es. I Have Known: II—C. J. Bowen Cooke”, in Railway Magazine, page 223

3. historicalA short whip with multiple lashes once used in France.

present singular third person martinets · participle present martineting · participle present martinetting · participle past martineted · past martineted · participle past martinetted · past martinetted

1. raretransitiveTo discipline strictly.
2. intransitiverareTo act like a strict disciplinarian.

plural martinets

1. rareA martin; a swift.