phalanxes

Noun

phalanx (plural phalanxes or (literary, formal or academic) phalanges)

1. (historical) An ancient Greek and Macedonian military unit that consisted of several ranks and files (lines) of soldiers in close array with joined shields and long spears.
2. A large group of people, animals or things, compact or closely massed, or tightly knit and united in common purpose.
   • The monarch hath gone, but his rocky throne
     Still rests on its frowning base;
     Its motionless guards rise in phalanx lone,
     And nought save the winds through their helmets that moan,
     And none but those bosoms and hearts of stone
     Sigh o'er a fallen race.1827, Lydia Sigourney, Poems, The Chair of the Indian KIng, page 93
3. (historical) A Fourierite utopian community; a phalanstery.
   • [Charles Fourier] calculated that if precisely 1,620 men, women and children were collected in a 6,000-acre phalanx, they would — all by merrily following their individual passions — end up satisfying all the phalanx’s essential needs.2009 April 16, Jon Mooallem, “The End Is Near! (Yay!)”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
4. One of the bones of the finger or toe.

   Synonyms:

   phalange, phalangeal

5. A bundle of stamens, in diadelphous and polyadelphous flowers.

See all 6 meanings of phalanx