phalanx

name

1. The brand name of a radar-controlled rapid fire 20mm Gatling-type machine gun, the Phalanx CIWS (pronounced see-wiz), deployed on U.S. Navy ships as a last line of defense against antiship cruise missiles.

noun

Etymology: Borrowed from Latin phalanx or Ancient Greek φάλαγξ (phálanx, “battle order; array”). Doublet of phalange, planch, plancha, planche, and plank.

1. An ancient Greek and Macedonian military unit that consisted of several ranks and files (lines) of soldiers in close array with joined shields and long spears.
2. A large group of people, animals or things, compact or closely massed, or tightly knit and united in common purpose.

   “The monarch hath gone, but his rocky throne Still rests on its frowning base; Its motionless guards rise in phalanx lone, And nought save the winds through their helmets that moan, And none but those bosoms and hearts of stone Sigh o'er a fallen race.”

   “But there was no man to greet them in the market-place, and no woman's face appeared at the windows - only a bodiless voice went before them, calling: "Fallen is Imperial Kôr! - fallen! - fallen! fallen!" On, right through the city, marched those gleaming phalanxes, and the rattle of their bony tread echoed through the silent air as they pressed grimly on.”

3. A Fourierite utopian community; a phalanstery.

   “[Charles Fourier] calculated that if precisely 1,620 men, women and children were collected in a 6,000-acre phalanx, they would — all by merrily following their individual passions — end up satisfying all the phalanx’s essential needs.”

4. One of the bones of the finger or toe.
5. A bundle of stamens, in diadelphous and polyadelphous flowers.