outpost

plural outposts

1. A military post stationed at a distance from the main body of troops.

   The outpost did not have enough ammunition to resist a determined assault.

2. The body of troops manning such a post.

   Sgt. Smith fleeced most of the rest of the outpost of their earnings in their weekly game of craps.

3. A sentinel positioned outside.

   The net had been fully drawn; every member of the gang had been accounted for and now the outposts stationed in the garden were coming in to take over the work of guarding and escorting the haul of prisoners.

   1934, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], The Bravo of London

4. An outlying settlement.

   Beyond the border proper, there are three small outposts not officially under government protection.

   3 more examples

   On March 9, 1903, an extension, 50 miles in length, was opened from Letterkenny to the remote outpost of Burtonport, a small township on the shores of the Atlantic in the far north-west corner of Co. Donegal, running through some of the wildest and bleakest parts of the country.

   1953 October, H. C. Casserley, “Closure of the Londonderry & Lough Swilly Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 701

   […] Colonel Moen was trying to make sense of the radio nets, which had never really been operational let alone secure; our numerous outposts were cobbled together with hand-held Motorolas and too few repeater stations […]

   2009, Julius Mutwol, Peace Agreements and Civil Wars in Africa, →ISBN, page 190

   Francis, by contrast, was at pains to listen and act, going so far in 2023 as to call a curiously named synod on synodality in his anxiety to make the process work better as a conduit between the centre and the outposts of his global church.

   2025 April 21, Peter Stanford, “Pope Francis obituary”, in The Guardian

5. board gamesA square protected by a pawn that is in or near the enemy's stronghold.