STANDING ARMY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does standing army mean? 

• STANDING ARMY (noun)
  The noun STANDING ARMY has 1 sense:

1. a permanent army of paid soldiers

  Familiarity information: STANDING ARMY used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• STANDING ARMY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A permanent army of paid soldiers

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

Hypernyms ("standing army" is a kind of...):

army; ground forces; regular army (a permanent organization of the military land forces of a nation or state)

Domain category:

armed forces; armed services; military; military machine; war machine (the military forces of a nation)

 Context examples 

Above all, he was amazed to hear me talk of a mercenary standing army, in the midst of peace, and among a free people.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

I told him, “that in the kingdom of Tribnia, by the natives called Langdon, where I had sojourned some time in my travels, the bulk of the people consist in a manner wholly of discoverers, witnesses, informers, accusers, prosecutors, evidences, swearers, together with their several subservient and subaltern instruments, all under the colours, the conduct, and the pay of ministers of state, and their deputies. The plots, in that kingdom, are usually the workmanship of those persons who desire to raise their own characters of profound politicians; to restore new vigour to a crazy administration; to stifle or divert general discontents; to fill their coffers with forfeitures; and raise, or sink the opinion of public credit, as either shall best answer their private advantage. It is first agreed and settled among them, what suspected persons shall be accused of a plot; then, effectual care is taken to secure all their letters and papers, and put the owners in chains. These papers are delivered to a set of artists, very dexterous in finding out the mysterious meanings of words, syllables, and letters: for instance, they can discover a close stool, to signify a privy council; a flock of geese, a senate; a lame dog, an invader; the plague, a standing army; a buzzard, a prime minister; the gout, a high priest; a gibbet, a secretary of state; a chamber pot, a committee of grandees; a sieve, a court lady; a broom, a revolution; a mouse-trap, an employment; a bottomless pit, a treasury; a sink, a court; a cap and bells, a favourite; a broken reed, a court of justice; an empty tun, a general; a running sore, the administration.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)