I’m not sure what I thought ‘dragoon’ meant, but I think I’ve been conflating it with ‘platoon’ all my life. And maybe also ‘doubloon’.
It turns out that ‘dragoon’ isn’t even a noun (a person, place or thing) – it’s a verb (doing word). If you dragoon someone, it means you pressure or force them into doing something they don’t really want to do. It’s not always aggressive – it could just be heavy-handed persuasion – but it definitely suggests a lack of choice. Think of being ‘dragooned into organising the office Christmas party’ when all you want to do is go home and watch ‘Kirstie’s Handmade Christmas’ with an eggnog. (Every Christmas I thank god I no longer have to run the gauntlet of senior colleagues and free alcohol. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.)
Like many good words, ‘dragoon’ started out in uniform. In the 1600s and 1700s, a dragoon was a mounted European infantryman – someone who rode to battle but fought on foot. They were named after their weapon, a short musket so-called due to its resemblance to a fire-breathing dragon when fired.
Here’s where things get a bit darker. Under Louis XIV in 17th-century France, dragoons were sent to persecute French Protestants (Huguenots) – often moving in with them forcibly and staying until they converted to Catholicism. This coercion was so notorious that ‘dragoon’ eventually became a verb, meaning to force someone to do something, echoing that original, presumably very literal, form of arm-twisting.
So next time someone’s trying to make you do something you don’t want to, try telling them you refuse to be dragooned – it might not get you out of it, but at least your resistance will sound stylish.