sortie

Syllables: sort·ie/ˈsɔːti/US/ˈsɔɹti/

sortie noun: an attack made by troops from a besieged position; a sally.

Image: Tovey P N F (Mr), RAF official photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

sortie (plural sorties)

(also, attributive, figuratively) An attack made by troops from a besieged position; a sally.
- The events of these sieges show that a bold and vigorous sortie in force might carry destruction through every part of a besieger's approaches, where the guard is injudiciously disposed and ill commanded; but that if due precautions have been observed in forming the approaches and posting the...1827, John T[homas] Jones, “[Notes.] Note 35 [Observations on the Several Sorties Made by the Garrisons of the Places Besieged in Spain].”, in Journals of Sieges Carried on by the Army under the Duke...
(also, attributive, figuratively) An operational flight carried out by a single military aircraft.
- Their aircraft had no belly gunners and were at the mercy of Luftwaffe fighters that attacked from below. Whenever they lifted off on a mission, they departed with the knowledge that this sortie could easily be their last.2019 May 8, Aron Heller, “These Jewish World War II Veterans Would Be Legends, if People Knew Their Stories”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
- They are vastly outnumbered: Russia is believed to fly some 200 sorties per day while Ukraine flies five to 10.2022 March 22, Maria Varenikova, Andrew E. Kramer, “How Ukraine’s Outgunned Air Force Is Fighting Back Against Russian Jets”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
(broadly) An act of venturing out to do a task, etc.
- ‘I'm just not interested in the whole class crap that seems to needle you and all the tax-payers,’ the teenager tells some ‘pre-historic monster’ of an adult, with a ‘cool’ snobbishness which MacInnes's companion on many of his Notting Hill sorties, the late Professor Richard Wollheim, compared to...2007 April 14, Ed Vulliamy, “Absolute MacInnes”, in The Guardian
- Finally, the astronauts will descend to the lunar surface. After their sortie on the moon, they'll return to the orbital station.2019 July 8, Jeff Foust, “NASA’s Lunar Space Station Is a Great/Terrible Idea”, in IEEE Spectrum, New York, N.Y.: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the...
(broadly, figuratively) An act of trying to enter a new field of activity.
(broadly, figuratively) An attacking move.
- Kai Johansen made a sortie down the right and, running out of ideas, tried a shot from more than 20 yards.1998, David Potter, Tom Campbell, Jock Stein: The Celtic Years, Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing, published 2005, →ISBN
(broadly) An operational flight carried out by a spacecraft involving a return to Earth.
(broadly) Synonym of sally port (“an entry to or opening into a fortification to enable a sally”).
- [I]t was all encompassed by the palisades and breastworks, to which were but three sorties, whence the defenders might sally, or through which at need the vanguard might secure a retreat.1848, [Edward Bulwer-Lytton], chapter VII, in Harold, the Last of the Saxon Kings; […], volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, book XII (The Field of Hastings), pages 331–332
Synonyms:

sally port
(broadly) A series of aerial photographs taken during the flight of an aircraft; (by extension) a photography session.

Verb

sortie (third-person singular simple present sorties, present participle sortieing, simple past and past participle sortied)

(intransitive) To carry out a sortie; to sally.
- Five Italian warships identified as two cruisers and three destroyers, sortied down the Albanian coast during the morning of 4 March and commenced shelling the coastal road near Himara and Port Palermo, under cover of a strong fighter escort of G.50bis and CR 42s from the 24º Gruppo CT.1987, Christopher Shores, Brian Cull, with Nicola Malizia, “The Battles of Spring”, in Air War for Yugoslavia, Greece and Crete 1940–41, London: Grub Street, →ISBN, pages 99–100

Proper noun capitalized: Sortie

Sortie (plural Sorties)

A surname.

sortie meaning in Bengali, Malayalam, Kannada and Vietnamese

sortie in Malayalam

charge, foray, sally: പ്രത്യാക്രമണം, ഒറ്റ സെെനികവിമാനം നടത്തുന്ന ആക്രമണയാത്ര, ആക്രമണം, കടന്നാക്രമണം, ചാടിവീഴൽ, പെട്ടെന്നുള്ള സെെനിക മുന്നേറ്റം
flight, raid, mission: മിന്നൽ വേഗത്തിലുള്ള സെെനികാക്രമണം, മിന്നലാക്രമണം, വിമാനാക്രമണം, വ്യോമാക്രമണം, വ്യോമയുദ്ധം, ആകാശയുദ്ധം

sortie in Vietnamese

operational flight carried out by a single military aircraft: phi vụ

Examples of sortie in a sentence

In the course of my lifetime, I have engaged in many sorties in milchamtah shel Tora.
A MAWTS qualified TERF instructor is required for all TERF instructional sorties.
All sorties made good their briefed takeoff time.

All 10 example sentences with sortie

Synonyms of sortie

sally port

Forms of sortie

Noun
plural	sorties
Verb
third-person singular present	sorties
present participle	sortieing
past participle	sortied
past	sortied
Proper noun
plural	Sorties

Plural of sortie: sorties

Origin of sortie

PIE word *upó The noun is borrowed from French sortie (“act of exiting; exit, way out; (military) sally, sortie”), the feminine past participle of sortir (“to exit, go out”), from Old French sortir, from Latin sortīrī, the present active infinitive of sortior (“to cast or draw lots; to choose, select; to distribute, divide; to obtain, receive; to share”), from sors (“something used to determine chances, a lot; casting or drawing of lots; decision by lot; a share”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ser- (“to bind, tie together; a thread”)), possibly influenced by surrēctus (“arisen, having been caused to arise; gotten up, having been gotten up”), the perfect passive participle of surgō (“to arise, get up, rise”), from subrigō (“to lift up; to straighten”), from sub- (prefix meaning ‘beneath, under’) + regō (“to direct, guide, steer; to govern, rule; to manage, oversee”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₃reǵ- (“to right oneself, straighten; just; right”)). The verb is derived from the noun.

Words formed from sortie

Words that rhyme with sortie

Questions about sortie

What does sortie mean?: Sortie means an attack made by troops from a besieged position; a sally.
What is sortie in Bengali?: Sortie in Bengali is আকস্মিক আক্রমণ, সামরিক অভিযান. See Sortie meaning in Bengali.
What part of speech is sortie?: Sortie can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce sortie?: Sortie is pronounced /ˈsɔːti/ (UK).
What is the plural of sortie?: The plural of sortie is sorties.

Words near sortie in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: sortie (page history and authors); Sortie (page history and authors); sortie (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); sortie (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); sortie (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

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

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