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🏢 A high rank 🪖 A stepped formation 🔬 A light grating 📶 To arrange in steps
echelon

echelon

2 8.1
A formation where troops or vehicles line up in stepped rows
  • noun
  • /ˈɛʃəˌlɒn/
  • Specialized
translation icon : formación escalonada
  • The troops advanced in an echelon, with each unit staggered to avoid enemy fire.
  • first echelon
  • rear echelon
  • echelon forces

Examples

  • - Dodge, James, starboard echelon.

    Greyhound (2020)

  • The Seljuks counterattack, envelop, and destroy the forward echelon.

    Academic text (1999)

  • We'll go around, make an echelon right once over the field, then break away.

    Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944)

  • Join formation with me, echelon right.

    Blue Thunder (1983)

  • May I rejoin the rear echelon now?

    The Big Red One (1980)

  • MAN: Viper 2, Lead, left echelon.

    Outbreak (1995)

  • Form starboard echelon on me at the head of the convoy.

    Greyhound (2020)

  • The SADF took its war against PLAN to its rear echelon areas in Angola.

    Academic text (1993)

  • And here is the we're kind of in a long extended Phalanx, or not Phalanx, but echelon formation.

  • Last I checked, that number includes all the rear-echelon folks who support the spear.

    Blog text (23)

How Aerodynamic

paceline
  • Jargon
1 8.2
echelon
  • Specialized
2 8.1
single file
19 2.8

Surface Forms

echelon singular
echelons plural

Etymology

Echelon comes from French échelon, meaning a 'rung' or 'step' of a ladder (from Latin scala 'ladder'). Picture tanks or planes arranged like ladder steps, each one a little behind and to the side of the one in front, which is why this formation is called an echelon.