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Definition of conscript in English:

conscript

Pronunciation /kənˈskript/ /kənˈskrɪpt/

Translate conscript into Spanish

transitive verb

[with object]

  • Enlist (someone) compulsorily, typically into the armed services.

    ‘they were conscripted into the army’
    • ‘If you were conscripted as a common soldier some two hundred years ago, you had to get permission to get married.’
    • ‘The first shows soldiers being conscripted during wartime as victims on an army production line.’
    • ‘They bombed granaries and rural villages, destroyed crops and irrigation systems, mined pastures and fields, destroyed herds and launched sweeps through rural areas - conscripting young men and destroying the infrastructure.’
    • ‘In all some two million men were conscripted between 1800 and 1814.’
    • ‘As in any situation where young and inexperienced people are conscripted into military duty, you will find a layer who question their actions.’
    • ‘Poland was overrun and he was conscripted into the Red Army.’
    • ‘The country's military junta has come under fire for decades for conscripting boys to the lower ranks of the military as porters and mine carriers.’
    • ‘At 18, shortly before the end of the Second World War, he was conscripted into the army.’
    • ‘He had an automatic gun on him that had jammed but to make his execution certain the authorities immediately conscripted him and had him tried by a military court.’
    • ‘Beginning in 1753, thousands of Canadians were conscripted each year into the militia, draining labour away from agriculture.’
    • ‘Forcible conscription of adults and children continued, although children were conscripted to a lesser extent than in the previous year.’
    • ‘He is conscripted into a nasty little private army, escapes, finds the uniform of a US mail man, and becomes a symbol of hope.’
    • ‘American and German governments even considered conscripting women to work for the war economies but found such action unnecessary.’
    • ‘But conscripting people with medical skills is just a start.’
    • ‘Back when the sailors were conscripted, living conditions were very poor.’
    • ‘In 1915 he was conscripted, but was regarded as unsuitable for combat duties and assigned to the postal and meteorological services.’
    • ‘In the Soviet Union, where millions of women were conscripted, they were just as aggressive and just as brutalised by the experience as the men.’
    • ‘He was conscripted in 1939 but, because he was blind in his right eye, he was assigned to the medical corps.’
    • ‘I was right of course and probably some of their big brothers were conscripted and killed.’
    • ‘Citizens were conscripted from more heavily populated parts of the empire.’
    call up, enlist, recruit, mobilize, raise, muster
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noun

  • A person enlisted compulsorily.

    ‘army conscripts’
    • ‘conscript troops’
    • ‘The speed with which it had been able to assemble and deploy such a conscript army conferred upon the German Confederation an advantage over the French, who struggled to get a smaller army into the field over a longer period of time.’
    • ‘It's a conscript army, and the families of the soldiers are suffering more each year.’
    • ‘Nor is a conscript army without advantages both for the soldiers and the institution.’
    • ‘It would allow Army conscripts who joined the military while in college to earn up to nine university course credits per year.’
    • ‘At present, barely half - 134,000 of 323,000 soldiers - are conscripts completing their military service.’
    • ‘Why the officer corps of the army or the conscript regular soldiers were all fired is inexplicable.’
    • ‘Military conscripts who complete military service within a single period are assigned to special standby units after basic training and are immediately available.’
    • ‘They had adopted the advantages of the new military system encapsulated in the popular conscript army, as Russia, Austria, and, particularly, Prussia undertook military reforms in response to battlefield defeat.’
    • ‘Most armies staffed with conscripts and poorly trained and motivated officers will likewise disappear if hit hard enough.’
    • ‘Constant readiness units manned by conscripts and those manned by conscripts plus contract soldiers are trained in accordance with a five-month program.’
    • ‘He had heard stories of deserting conscripts from the Army crossing into the hands of the revolution.’
    • ‘This archive consists of hundreds of images of naked men, presumably fresh conscripts and army recruits, taken for an unknown kind of ethnographic exercise.’
    • ‘This was the period when Napoleon was desperately trying to call up conscripts for his armies as he attempted to replenish the troops lost in the fighting.’
    • ‘It is no coincidence that the public debate accompanies the transformation of the French military from a conscript force into a professional modern army.’
    • ‘The new conscript army must have been rather unattractive for the samurai.’
    • ‘But in a conscript army assembled by a dictatorship, the line between civilian and soldier gets blurred, at least by my calculation.’
    • ‘A peasant conscript army was established, with weapons being the possessions of the government.’
    • ‘A conscript army was considered the corollary of a democratic society.’
    • ‘It means that reserve troops, conscripts who have served out their compulsory-service term, would receive more recalls for training in the future.’
    • ‘To some extent migrant labour is performing the role once played by military service when ex-army conscripts returned to the villages with new skills and ambitions.’
    impressed man, recruit
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Origin

Late 18th century (as a noun): from French conscrit, from Latin conscriptus, past participle of conscribere ‘enroll’. The verb is a back-formation from conscription.