sorties

Noun

sortie (plural sorties)

1. (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...
2. (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
3. (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
4. (broadly, figuratively) An act of trying to enter a new field of activity.
5. (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
6. (broadly) An operational flight carried out by a spacecraft involving a return to Earth.

See all 10 meanings of sortie