Word.ws English Dictionary

martinet

/ˈmɑɹtɪnɛt/

martinet noun: a strict disciplinarian.

Noun (1)

martinet (plural martinets)

  1. A strict disciplinarian.
    • 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
    • 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. (figuratively) Anyone 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. (historical) A short whip with multiple lashes once used in France.

Verb

martinet (third-person singular simple present martinets, present participle martineting or martinetting, simple past and past participle martineted or martinetted)

  1. (rare, transitive) To discipline strictly.
  2. (intransitive, rare) To act like a strict disciplinarian.

Noun (2)

martinet (plural martinets)

  1. (rare) A martin; a swift.

martinet meaning in Tamil, Bengali and Malayalam

martinet in Tamil

நமது பூமியில் காணப்படும் பறவைகளில், இது ஒரு சிறப்பு இனமாகும்

martinet in Bengali

কঠোর নিয়মনিষ্ঠ ব্যক্তি

martinet in Malayalam

stickler for discipline, disciplinarian, slave-driver
കടുത്ത അച്ചടക്കം പാലിക്കുന്ന ആൾ, ഉഗ്രശാസനൻ, ബദ്ധശാസകൻ, കർശനിയമപാലകൻ, സുഗ്രീവൻ, കണിശക്കാരൻ

Forms of martinet

Noun
pluralmartinets
Verb
third-person singular presentmartinets
present participlemartineting
present participlemartinetting
past participlemartineted
pastmartineted
past participlemartinetted
pastmartinetted

Origin of martinet

After the example of 17th-century French army officer Jean Martinet.

Borrowed from French martinet.

Words formed from martinet

Words that rhyme with martinet

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about martinet

What does martinet mean?
Martinet means a strict disciplinarian.
What is martinet in Tamil?
Martinet in Tamil is நமது பூமியில் காணப்படும் பறவைகளில், இது ஒரு சிறப்பு இனமாகும். See Martinet meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is martinet?
Martinet can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce martinet?
Martinet is pronounced /ˈmɑɹtɪnɛt/.
What is the plural of martinet?
The plural of martinet is martinets.

Words near martinet in the dictionary

  1. Martineaus
  2. Martinek
  3. Martineks
  4. Martinelli
  5. Martinellis
  6. martinet
  7. martineta
  8. martinetas
  9. martineted
  10. martineting
  11. martinetish

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: martinet (page history and authors); martinet (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); martinet (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); martinet (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). 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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Cite this entry: “martinet.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/martinet. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.