Word.ws English Dictionary

cantonment

/kanˈtuːnmənt//kanˈtɒnmənt/

cantonment noun: temporary military living quarters.

Noun

cantonment (plural cantonments)

  1. Temporary military living quarters.
    • On the Umballa platform waited a detachment of officers discussing the latest news from the stricken cantonment, and it was here that Bobby learned the real condition of the Tail Twisters.1889, Rudyard Kipling, “Only A Subaltern”, in Under the Deodars, Boston: The Greenock Press, published 1899, page 145
  2. A town or village, or part of a town or village, assigned to a body of troops for quarters.
    • The cantonments, it transpired, were singularly ill-sited for defence, being built on low, marshy ground, overlooked by hills on all sides.1990, Peter Hopkirk, The Great Game, Folio Society, published 2010, page 220
  3. (India, Pakistan) A permanent military station.

cantonment meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

cantonment in Hindi

permanent military station
छावनी chāvnī

cantonment in Tamil

பாசறை, பாடி, பாளையம், படைவீரர்களின் தற்காலக் குடியிருப்பு, படையினர் நகரம்

cantonment in Marathi

cantonment, encampment
लष्कर laṣkar

cantonment in Urdu

cantonment
چھاؤنی chā'onī

Forms of cantonment

pluralcantonments

Origin of cantonment

From French cantonnement.

Questions about cantonment

What does cantonment mean?
Cantonment means temporary military living quarters.
What is cantonment in Hindi?
Cantonment in Hindi is छावनी (chāvnī). See Cantonment meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is cantonment?
Cantonment is a noun.
How do you pronounce cantonment?
Cantonment is pronounced /kanˈtɒnmənt/ (UK).
What is the plural of cantonment?
The plural of cantonment is cantonments.

Words near cantonment in the dictionary

  1. cantonizations
  2. cantonize
  3. cantonized
  4. cantonizes
  5. cantonizing
  6. cantonment
  7. cantonments
  8. cantons
  9. cantoon
  10. cantoons
  11. Cantophone

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cantonment (page history and authors); cantonment (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); लष्कर (Marathi) (page history and authors); چھاؤنی (Urdu) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-cantonment.wav.

Cite this entry: “cantonment.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cantonment. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.