Brigades

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Teams of individuals arranged to perform specific functions or objectives
2. Collections of units structured for tasks often related to military or emergency response operations
3. Units consisting of multiple teams formed to achieve particular goals in military or civilian contexts

Etymology: Brigade is an inflected form here, the plural of "brigade," so the story belongs to that base word. English borrowed "brigade" from French, where it came from Italian "brigata," a group or company of people. The Italian word traces back to "brigare," meaning to strive or to be busy with something, a verb tied to the idea of fighting for a cause or getting involved in a dispute. Along the way, the Italian stem gathered the sense of an organized band of people working toward a common aim. The military sense, a fixed unit of soldiers, is what made the word stick. Once a body of troops was grouped under one command, "brigade" became the standard term for that arrangement. The modern meaning in the sense you have here, teams formed to carry out specific tasks, grew out of that military habit of organizing people into purposeful units.

Synonyms: units, groups, squads, platoons