Word.ws English Dictionary

reverse arms

reverse arms noun: a position of a soldier in which the weapon points downwards and backwards at an angle of 45° (while walking), or straight down (when at rest).

reverse arms: a position of a soldier in which the weapon points downwards and backwards at an angle of 45°...
Image: James Boyes from UK, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

reverse arms (uncountable)

  1. A position of a soldier in which the weapon points downwards and backwards at an angle of 45° (while walking), or straight down (when at rest)
    • […] it is recorded that at the funeral for Marlborough in 1722, the troops carried out a formal reverse arms drill which was especially invented for the service; it was a unique sign of respect to the great soldier.2009, Christopher Jobson, Looking Forward Looking Back

Questions about reverse arms

What does reverse arms mean?
Reverse arms means a position of a soldier in which the weapon points downwards and backwards at an angle of 45° (while walking), or straight down (when at rest).
What part of speech is reverse arms?
Reverse arms is a noun.

Words near reverse arms in the dictionary

  1. reverse 911 call
  2. reverse 911 calls
  3. reverse Advent calendar
  4. reverse Advent calendars
  5. reverse anorexia nervosa
  6. reverse arms
  7. reverse bigotry
  8. reverse boustrophedon
  9. reverse brain drain
  10. reverse brain drains
  11. reverse bunny suit

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: reverse arms (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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Cite this entry: “reverse arms.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/reverse_arms. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.