laager, verb

Forms:
Also lager.
Origin:
From laager noun.
1. transitive. in historical contexts. To form (wagons) into a laager, as a defensive fortification.
1879 Daily News (U.K.) 1 Mar.The waggons were not ‘laagered’ or drawn up so close as to make it difficult to force the camp.
1882 C. Du Val With Show through Sn Afr. II. 46There was no time to ‘laager’ the waggons.
1885 Lady Bellairs Tvl at War 93The waggons were laagered, double sentries and look-outs placed. The march was continued with the greatest caution, the waggons being kept closed up, so that they could be quickly laagered on the first appearance of intended attack.
1934 B.I. Buchanan Pioneer Days 112He ordered the wagons to be inspanned, but left where they were, and refused requests to allow them to be laagered.
1949 O. Walker Proud Zulu (1951) 176He listened in Maritzburg and D’Urban to the tales of colonials who had fought against the Zulus in the long ago, and their eternal prating about ‘laagering’ the wagons.
1958 S. Cloete Mask 147Before long the wagons came up and were laagered — wagon tongue to wagon bed in a great defensive circle.
1968 R. Keech in New Coin Poetry Vol.4 No.4, Dec. 12Too late we laager their forty-five waggons As tourniquet around that disembowelling plain.
1988 [see ossewa sense 2 b].
2. transitive and reflexive. To encamp (persons, or oneself and one’s companions) in a strong defensive position in a laager. Usually passive.
1883 Standard (U.K.) 17 May 5Four hundred Boers, laagered in Stilleland, have threatened to attack Mankoroane.
[1895 Westminster Gaz. (U.K.) 28 Aug. 1What, then, can be more absurd, to adopt Mr. Healy’s picturesque phrase, than ‘to laager the Postmaster-General in the Lords?’]
1897 F.R. Statham S. Afr. as It Is 41The Europeans, believing themselves to be attacked by the Griquas, laagered themselves in the town.
3. intransitive. To camp; to set up camp (within a ring of wagons). Also figurative, and in the phrase laager up.
1885 Lady Bellairs Tvl War 93With difficulty the waggons were passed over Sand Spruit, then halting, and laagering for breakfast.
1896 Tablet (U.K.) 22 Feb. 290We stopped firing at about seven o’clock, and laagered up for the night.
1897 F.W. Sykes With Plumer in Matabeleland 132About half an hour before laagering, a party of officers will be sent forward to reconnoitre the ground to be selected.
1937 C.R. Prance Tante Rebella’s Saga 118Armed farmers..clamorous for advice whether to defend their farms, to bring their families to laager at the Post.
1953 B. Fuller Call Back Yesterday 129Near this division of the roads is the site of the encampment where Piet Retief laagered after crossing the Berg.
1956 M. Rogers Black Sash 175A total of 321 Black Sash women in 86 cars laagered in the historic town tonight.
1970 P.B. Clements in Outpost 40After about half-an-hour’s fighting, in which time we suffered several casualties, we were ordered to laager up.
1980 E. Prov. Herald 17 June 8Eventually the battle petered out, and we had laagered for the night. As we lay, the crew of the vehicle despondently discussed the day’s events.
1989 J. Crwys-Williams S. Afr. Despatches 6By midday, all was over: the royal kraal was fired and the troops recrossed the Umfolozi to laager for the night.
4. transitive. rare. To enclose (an encampment) in a laager.
1891 R. Russell Natal 229Had the camp been at once laagered in Dutch fashion on the first indication of the enemy’s presence.
1934 B.I. Buchanan Pioneer Days 112He would inevitably incur disaster if the camp were not laagered (that is, barricaded with parked wagons) wherever and whenever it was pitched.
To form (wagons) into a laager, as a defensive fortification.
To encamp (persons, or oneself and one’s companions) in a strong defensive position in a laager. Usually passive.
To camp; to set up camp (within a ring of wagons). Also figurative, and in the phrase laager up.
To enclose (an encampment) in a laager.
Derivatives:
Hence laagered  participial adjective, (of wagons) disposed so as to serve as a laager; (of camps or persons) enclosed in a laager or behind a defensive barrier (also figurative); laagering  verbal noun, the action of forming a laager.
1881 Contemp. Rev. (U.K.) Feb. 222The laagered waggon their sole protection.
1894 Daily News (U.K.) 14 Sept. 5The Army Service Corps were drilled in laagering.
1901 Grocott’s Penny Mail 3 Jan. 3Piet Swart, the Origstad Veld-cornet is laagered in the vicinity of Kruger’s Post.
1926 M. Nathan S. Afr. from Within 22On the 16th, while laagered on the Umhlatusi (since known as Blood River), they were attacked by the main Zulu army.
1937 S. Cloete Turning Wheels 40Yes, I am laagered. I was waiting for you, Paul.
1942 S. Cloete Hill of Doves 21There was no tragic history of massacre, or laagered camps.
1948 H.V. Morton In Search of S. Afr. 30The assegais whistling towards Boer and Briton; the bullets thumping from the wheels of laagered wagons.
1949 Cape Times 27 Apr. 10Are we really going to keep ourselves laagered when other countries in Africa get together on economic expansion projects?
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