Escorts

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A collective of individuals who accompany others for various purposes commonly involves leisure activities or protection during outings
2. People who accompany someone to offer help or security ; people hired to provide company at social events or outings
3. Those who go with others to ensure safety or to guide them ; companions paid or invited to accompany and entertain guests

Etymology: "Escorts" is the plural of "escort," and the singular entered English by way of French from Italian. The Italian "scorta" means a guard or convoy, from the idea of someone who looks ahead and keeps watch over others on a journey. French took the word as "escorte," and English borrowed it from there, so the notion of protection came into the language before the notion of company did. The plural form carries both senses that the word has developed. In its older, more practical use, an escort was a body of soldiers, ships, or armed men who guarded people or goods in transit, and the word still carries that sense of protection on the road. The later, more social meaning, companions who accompany someone to an event, grew out of the same act of going along with someone, now stripped of the military purpose.

Synonyms: companions, guides, chaperones, protectors, attendants

Antonyms: abandoners, deserters, forsakers, leave-takers, disbanders