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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

sortie.

An attack made by troops from a besieged position; a sally.

6 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈsɔːti/Received-Pronunciation/ˈsɔɹti/General-American[-ɾi]General-American
  1. An attack made by troops from a besieged position; a sally.

    also · attributive · figuratively
  2. An operational flight carried out by a single military aircraft.

    also · attributive · figuratively
  3. An act of venturing out to do a task, etc.

    broadly
  4. An act of trying to enter a new field of activity.

    broadly · figuratively
  5. An attacking move.

    broadly · figuratively
  6. An operational flight carried out by a spacecraft involving a return to Earth.

    broadly
  7. Synonym of sally port (“an entry to or opening into a fortification to enable a sally”).

    broadly
  8. A series of aerial photographs taken during the flight of an aircraft; (by extension) a photography session.

    broadly
Where this word comes from

PIE word *upó The noun is borrowed from French sortie (“act of exiting; exit, way out; (military) sally, sortie”), the feminine past participle of sortir (“to exit, go out”), from Old French sortir, from Latin sortīrī, the present active infinitive of sortior (“to cast or draw lots; to choose, select; to distribute, divide; to obtain, receive; to share”), from sors (“something used to determine chances, a lot; casting or drawing of lots; decision by lot; a share”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ser- (“to bind, tie together; a thread”)), possibly influenced by surrēctus (“arisen, having been caused to arise; gotten up, having been gotten up”), the perfect passive participle of surgō (“to arise, get up, rise”), from subrigō (“to lift up; to straighten”), from sub- (prefix meaning ‘beneath, under’) + regō (“to direct, guide, steer; to govern, rule; to manage, oversee”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₃reǵ- (“to right oneself, straighten; just; right”)). The verb is derived from the noun.

verb/ˈsɔːti/Received-Pronunciation/ˈsɔɹti/General-American[-ɾi]General-American
  1. To carry out a sortie; to sally.

    intransitive
Where this word comes from

PIE word *upó The noun is borrowed from French sortie (“act of exiting; exit, way out; (military) sally, sortie”), the feminine past participle of sortir (“to exit, go out”), from Old French sortir, from Latin sortīrī, the present active infinitive of sortior (“to cast or draw lots; to choose, select; to distribute, divide; to obtain, receive; to share”), from sors (“something used to determine chances, a lot; casting or drawing of lots; decision by lot; a share”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ser- (“to bind, tie together; a thread”)), possibly influenced by surrēctus (“arisen, having been caused to arise; gotten up, having been gotten up”), the perfect passive participle of surgō (“to arise, get up, rise”), from subrigō (“to lift up; to straighten”), from sub- (prefix meaning ‘beneath, under’) + regō (“to direct, guide, steer; to govern, rule; to manage, oversee”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₃reǵ- (“to right oneself, straighten; just; right”)). The verb is derived from the noun.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.