commandeer, verb

Forms:
Formerly also kommandeer.
Origin:
DutchShow more Adaptation of Dutch commanderen, kommanderen to press or requisition.
Note:
Now in general English usage.
1. To seize (goods, domestic animals, vehicles, buildings, etc.) for military use.
a. transitive.
1810 J.G. Cuyler in G.E. Cory Rise of S. Afr. (1910) I. 223Horses of course will have to be commandeered.
1880 G.F. Austen Diary (1981) 17Commandeering goods, liquors &c. going on as before — but more so.
1885 Lady Bellairs Tvl at War 206Many attempts at evasion were practised to avoid handing over stores or horses commandeered.
1900 S.T. Plaatje Boer War Diary (1973) 67All grain belonging to storekeepers was commandeered.
c1936 S. & E. Afr. Yr Bk & Guide 73A large quantity of bullion was commandeered from the mines.
1937 H. Klein Stage Coach Dust 196When supplies gave out he was empowered to forage round the farms in the vicinity and commandeer whatever he wanted: oxen, sheep, cows, poultry.
1941 C. Birkby Springbok Victory 153He commandeered a donkey and trekked back through the bush.
1958 A. Jackson Trader on Veld 71The Government warned business people in the country districts to take stock of their belongings and deposit stock sheets with their respective magistrates, in order to establish any claims for goods that might be commandeered.
1987 J. Silver in Personality 7 Oct. 12Like all other plane owners in that year, he’d had his aircraft commandeered by the Defence Force.
1990 [see commando sense 4].
b. intransitive.
1881 Times (U.K.) 25 Jan. 5The Boers are in Lydenburg commandeering from the stores.
1882 Standard (U.K.) 12 Dec. 5The action of the Government in commandeering so extensively.
2.
a. transitive. Usually passive. To force (someone) into military service; commando verb, see commando noun. Also attributive.
1859 Cape Town Weekly Mag. 28 Jan. 27A large commando will again go out against..Bechuana tribes...The burghers have already been commandeered, and are preparing to turn out.
1871 J. Mackenzie Ten Yrs N. of Orange River 37The men who had been ‘commandeered,’ or called out, had been again disbanded.
a1875 T. Baines Jrnl of Res. (1964) II. 84The old Field-Cornet Cronjee..‘kommandeered’ Piet, Christian and Baart Harmse, as well as a horse, with saddle and bridle.
1881 G.F. Austen Diary (1981) 37Most of the inhabitants of the town have been today commandeered to do personal service on Monday next or to pay fines from £10 upwards.
1897 F.R. Statham S. Afr. as It Is 285A considerable number of British subjects resident in the Transvaal were ‘commandeered’ for service in the field against one Malaboch, a recusant native chief.
1900 W.S. Churchill London to Ladysmith 141‘So now you fight against your country?’ ‘I can’t help it,’ he repeated sullenly, ‘you must go when you’re commandeered.’
1905 Star 2 Oct. 7Every civil servant, and indeed every burgher who was capable of carrying arms,..was liable upon the outbreak of war to be commandeered to do military duty.
a1930 G. Baumann in Baumann & Bright Lost Republic (1940) 183There was no discrimination, when commandeering Free State Burghers, as to whether their origin was English, German or any other nationality.
1940 F.B. Young City of Gold 178The general wants wagons, so now you are commandeered. Report yourself to headquarters.
1964 M. Benson Afr. Patriots 48Thema..as a child during the Anglo-Boer War had been commandeered by the Boers to be at one time or another a kitchen-boy, cook, batman, waiter and labourer.
1982 Sunday Times 16 May (caption)Helgard Prinsloo...commandeered at 15.
b. intransitive.
1977 R.J. Haines in R.J. Bouch Infantry in S. Afr. 1652–1976 3In order to avoid inflicting too great hardships on the border dwellers a system of commandeering in rotation was introduced so that the burgers of Swellendam and Tulbagh were also compelled to enter occasional service.
3. transferred sense. To take arbitrary possession of (something). Also figurative.
a. transitive.
1901 R. Kipling in War’s Brighter Side 135We never use such words as steal, or ‘collar’, ‘pinch’ or ‘shake’. The fashion is to say he ‘commandeers’ it.
1901 Grocott’s Penny Mail 3 Jan. 2The Boers..professed to have ‘commandeered the Almighty..’.
1910 D. Fairbridge That Which Hath Been (1913) 172The laws with regard to cattle-barter with the Hottentots had been joyfully defied and raids organised in which, under pretext of barter, natives had been killed and the cattle commandeered.
1925 D. Kidd Essential Kafir 17As the children grow older they annex or ‘commandeer’ some rudiments of dress.
1972 Argus 9 Dec. 17Their car wouldn’t start. They commandeered another and took the man to hospital.
1978 A.P. Brink Rumours of Rain 211His wagon was among those commandeered to convey the immigrants to their farms in the interior.
b. intransitive.
1937 C.R. Prance Tante Rebella’s Saga 113Orders are orders and Blinkers was up against the necessity to ‘commandeer’ unscrupulously with no other course available.
To seize (goods, domestic animals, vehicles, buildings, etc.) for military use.
To force (someone) into military service; commando verb, see commando noun. Also attributive.
To take arbitrary possession of (something). Also figurative.
Derivatives:
Hence (sense 1 and 2) commandeered  participial adjective, pressed into or appropriated for military service or use; absolute, the people so commandeered; commandeering  verbal noun, the action or system of pressing or requisitioning for military purposes; also attributive.
1880 G.F. Austen Diary (1981) 7The officers..on this day commenced ordering liquors and other refreshments to be supplied for their use, in some cases giving no acknowledgement, in others a commandeering order — as they term it — compelling its delivery by their force.
[1881 G.F. Austen Diary (1981) 43A number of the English inhabitants have to day received commandeer orders to serve personally — to appear tomorrow.]
1882 C. Du Val With Show through Sn Afr. II. 9‘Commandeering’ is a South African term which refers to the taking over, or otherwise seizing, in the name of the governing body, any and every article deemed necessary to the successful carrying on of warfare, with or without payment or acknowledgement.
1885 Lady Bellairs Tvl at War 105Fatigue-parties were engaged everywhere, loading up the commandeered supplies.
1887 A.A. Anderson 25 Yrs in Waggon II. 45I found myself among the commandeered.
1894 Westminster Gaz. (U.K.) 23 June 6A number of commandeered settlers.
1898 A. Milner in C. Headlam Milner Papers (1931) I. 197Commandeering. If need be, we must face a big row about this.
1899 Daily News 13 June 4Each commandeered burgher.
1900 A.W. Carter Informant, Ladybrand 24 Jan. 1There is nothing about the new commandeering — I would like to know who they got out of L[ady] B[rand].
1913 M.M. Cleaver Young S. Afr. 98The commandeering official knocked at the door and demanded Ou Baas.
1921 W.C. Scully Harrow 154The commandeering of cattle,..and of wagons proceeded apace. The effect was absolutely ruinous...Commandeering came in the case of the suspect to spell confiscation...Without such receipts payment for the commandeered items could not be claimed.
1936 H.F. Trew Botha Treks 43I was shown a commandeering note he had given to the hotel-keeper at Pienaars River.
1937 H. Klein Stage Coach Dust 196As payment for the commandeered stock he gave the farmer a voucher, equivalent to the value taken.
1944 ‘Twede in Bevel’ Piet Kolonel 62Whenever we moved, the most colossal crates would necessitate the commandeering of all available transport.
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figurative or allusive
commandant-general, nounn.commando, nounn.
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