cohort

[ koh-hawrt ]
See synonyms for: cohortcohorts on Thesaurus.com

noun
  1. a group or company: She has a cohort of admirers.

  2. a companion or associate.

  1. one of the ten divisions in an ancient Roman legion, numbering from 300 to 600 soldiers.

  2. any group of soldiers or warriors.

  3. an accomplice; abettor: He got off with probation, but his cohorts got ten years apiece.

  4. a group of persons sharing a particular statistical or demographic characteristic: the cohort of all children born in 1980.

  5. Biology. an individual in a population of the same species.

Origin of cohort

1
First recorded in 1475–85; from Middle French cohorte, from Latin cohort- (stem of cohors ) “farmyard, armed force (originally, from a particular place or camp), cohort, retinue,” equivalent to co- “with, together” + hort- (akin to hortus “garden”); replacing late Middle English cohors, from Latin; see co-, com-

word story For cohort

A cohort was originally one of the ten divisions of a legion in the Roman army, containing from 300 to 600 men. The most common use of cohort today is in the sense “group” or “company”: A cohort of hangers-on followed the singer down the corridor. In a development emphasizing the idea of companionship, cohort has also come to mean a single companion, associate, or the like: The senator strode into the room followed by his faithful cohort, his son-in-law.

Other words for cohort

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Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use cohort in a sentence

British Dictionary definitions for cohort

cohort

/ (ˈkəʊhɔːt) /


noun
  1. one of the ten units of between 300 and 600 men in an ancient Roman Legion

  2. any band of warriors or associates: the cohorts of Satan

  1. mainly US an associate or follower

  2. biology a taxonomic group that is a subdivision of a subclass (usually of mammals) or subfamily (of plants)

  3. statistics a group of people with a statistic in common, esp having been born in the same year

Origin of cohort

1
C15: from Latin cohors yard, company of soldiers; related to hortus garden

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012