Ser·geant n.  [Written also serjeant. Both spellings are authorized. In England serjeant is usually preferred, except for military officers. In the United States sergeant is common for civil officers also.]
 1. Formerly, in England, an officer nearly answering to the more modern bailiff of the hundred; also, an officer whose duty was to attend on the king, and on the lord high steward in court, to arrest traitors and other offenders. He is now called sergeant-at-arms, and two of these officers, by allowance of the sovereign, attend on the houses of Parliament (one for each house) to execute their commands, and another attends the Court Chancery.
    The sergeant of the town of Rome them sought.   --Chaucer.
    The magistrates sent the serjeant, saying, Let those men go.   --Acts xvi. 35.
 This fell sergeant, Death,
 Is strict in his arrest.   --Shak.
 2. Mil. In a company, battery, or troop, a noncommissioned officer next in rank above a corporal, whose duty is to instruct recruits in discipline, to form the ranks, etc.
 Note: ☞ In the United States service, besides the sergeants belonging to the companies there are, in each regiment, a sergeant major, who is the chief noncommissioned officer, and has important duties as the assistant to the adjutant; a quartermaster sergeant, who assists the quartermaster; a color sergeant, who carries the colors; and a commissary sergeant, who assists in the care and distribution of the stores. Ordnance sergeants have charge of the ammunition at military posts.
 3. Law A lawyer of the highest rank, answering to the doctor of the civil law; -- called also serjeant at law. [Eng.]
 4. A title sometimes given to the servants of the sovereign; as, sergeant surgeon, that is, a servant, or attendant, surgeon. [Eng.]
 5. Zool. The cobia.
 Drill sergeant. Mil. See under Drill.
 Sergeant-at-arms, an officer of a legislative body, or of a deliberative or judicial assembly, who executes commands in preserving order and arresting offenders. See Sergeant, 1.
 Sergeant major. (a) Mil. See the Note under def. 2, above. (b) Zool. The cow pilot.

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 Drill, n.
 1. An instrument with an edged or pointed end used for making holes in hard substances; strictly, a tool that cuts with its end, by revolving, as in drilling metals, or by a succession of blows, as in drilling stone; also, a drill press.
 2. Mil. The act or exercise of training soldiers in the military art, as in the manual of arms, in the execution of evolutions, and the like; hence, diligent and strict instruction and exercise in the rudiments and methods of any business; a kind or method of military exercises; as, infantry drill; battalion drill; artillery drill.
 3. Any exercise, physical or mental, enforced with regularity and by constant repetition; as, a severe drill in Latin grammar.
 4. Zool. A marine gastropod, of several species, which kills oysters and other bivalves by drilling holes through the shell. The most destructive kind is Urosalpinx cinerea.
 Bow drill, Breast drill. See under Bow, Breast.
 Cotter drill, or Traverse drill, a machine tool for drilling slots.
 Diamond drill. See under Diamond.
 Drill jig. See under Jig.
 Drill pin, the pin in a lock which enters the hollow stem of the key.
 Drill sergeant Mil., a noncommissioned officer whose office it is to instruct soldiers as to their duties, and to train them to military exercises and evolutions.
 Vertical drill, a drill press.