Word.ws English Dictionary

troops

/tɹuːps/

troops is the plural of troop.

troops is the third-person singular simple present indicative of troop.

Meaning of troop

Noun

troop (plural troops)

  1. (collective) A collection of people; a number; a multitude (in general).
    • That which should accompany old age — / As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends — / I must not look to have.c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
    1. (collective) A small unit of cavalry or armour commanded by a captain, corresponding to a platoon or company of infantry.
    2. (collective) A detachment of soldiers or police, especially horse artillery, armour, or state troopers.
    3. (collective, in plural) A group of soldiers; military forces.
      • Ah, knovv you not the Citie fauours them, / And they haue troupes of Souldiers at their beck?c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard...
    4. (collective, nonstandard) A company of actors; a troupe.
      • In order to form the new troop to a greater degree of perfection, the four principal actors were placed in the seminary of the cadets1784, William Coxe, Travels into Poland, Russia, Sweden and Denmark
    5. (collective, scouting) A chapter of a national girl or boy scouts organization, consisting of one or more patrols of 6 to 8 youngsters each.
      • Lord Baden-Powell of Gilwell (1920), Aids To Scoutmastership, page 6: “It is the Patrol System that makes the Troop, and all Scouting for that matter, a real co-operative effort.”

See all 15 meanings of troop

Noun

troops pl (plural only)

  1. (plural, plural-only) Military personnel in uniform.
    • There were 10,000 troops in Iraq.
    Synonyms:
    soldiers

Proper noun capitalized: Troops

Troops

  1. (plural) plural of Troop

Synonyms of troops

Words formed from troops

Phrases with troops

Words that rhyme with troops

Questions about troops

What does troops mean?
Troops means military personnel in uniform.
What is troops the plural of?
Troops is the plural of troop.
What part of speech is troops?
Troops can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce troops?
Troops is pronounced /tɹuːps/.

Words near troops in the dictionary

  1. troopings
  2. trooplift
  3. trooplifts
  4. troopmate
  5. troopmates
  6. troops
  7. troops the color
  8. troops the colour
  9. troops the colours
  10. troopship
  11. troopships

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: troops (page history and authors); Troops (page history and authors); troop (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-troops.ogg.

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