peloton

The peloton at the start of the Boise to Idaho City stage of the Women’s Challenge race in June 1998.

Borrowed from French peloton (“small ball (of thread, etc.), pellet; (cycling) group of riders formed during a cycling road race; (military) small group of soldiers, platoon”), from pelote (“small ball (of thread, etc.)”) (ultimately from Latin pila (“ball; ball game; globe, sphere”) (probably referring to a ball of hair), from pilus (“strand of hair”), from Proto-Indo-European *pil- (“strand of hair”)) + -on (augmentative suffix).[1] Doublet of platoon.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈpɛlətɒn/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˌpɛləˈtɑn/
• Rhymes: (GA pronunciation) -ɒn
• Hyphenation: pe‧lot‧on

peloton (plural pelotons)

1. (cycle racing) A group of riders formed during a cycling road race; especially, the main group of riders; the pack.
   • 2006 July 15, “Tour de France 2006: Life is rarely dull among the bottle-carriers and peloton pushers”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian‎, London: Guardian News & Media, ISSN 0261-3077, OCLC 229952407, archived from the original on 15 March 2016:

     For the most part, though, the good stuff did not come in following a break of three riders, nor sitting 20 metres in front of the peloton watching its arrow head glide across the plains of south-west France. It was at the back of the peloton, in the engine room, where things really got interesting. It is a remarkable thing, the peloton. In the distance, or from the aerial shots showing it stretching and contracting, or splitting down the middle to allow it to flow smoothly around a roundabout, the 175 individual cyclists resemble a single unit, a fluid, malleable whole.

   • 2012 July 15, Richard Williams, “Tour de France 2012: Carpet tacks cannot force Bradley Wiggins off track”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian‎, London: Guardian News & Media, ISSN 0261-3077, OCLC 229952407, archived from the original on 31 March 2022:

     The summit of the climb came 38km from the end of stage 14, which began in Limoux and ended in Foix in the foothills of the Pyrenees, and the incident occurred as the peloton emerged into the light and passed under the banner at the top, a quarter of an hour behind a five-man breakaway.

2. (military, chiefly historical) Synonym of platoon (“a small group of soldiers”) or synonym of section (cognate with the former; not invariably synonymous with it, depending on century of use)
   • 1819, Jedadiah Cleishbotham [pseudonym; Walter Scott], chapter VI, in Tales of My Landlord, Third Series. […], volume IV (A Legend of Montrose), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], OCLC 277985465, page 135:

     And so here, I suppose you intend to make a stand against your followers, Ranald—voto a Dios, as the Spaniard says—a very pretty position—as pretty a position for a small peloton of men as I have seen in my service—no enemy can come towards it by the road without being at the mercy of cannon and musket.

   • 1840 November, R[ichard] W[illiam] H[oward] Howard Vyse, “Some Account of the Composition and Force of the Egyptian Army”, in The United Service Journal and Naval and Military Magazine, part III, number 144, London: Henry Colburn, […], OCLC 933313799, page 307:

     A regiment of cavalry consists of six squadrons, each squadron of four pelotons, each peloton of two companies, each company of two escouardes, and each escouarde of two men.

   • 1864, Richard F[rancis] Burton, “We Enter Whydah in State”, in A Mission to Gelele, King of Dahome. […], volume I, London: Tinsley Brothers, […], OCLC 645923947, page 44:

     Then the chief of each peloton came forward, snapped fingers with us as we sat on our chairs under the tree, our guards ranged on the right, a mob of gazers—women scratching and boys pulling—on the left, and an open space in front.

   • 2000, Margers Vestermanis, “Local Headquarters Liepaja: Two Months of German Occupation in the Summer of 1941”, in Hannes Heer and Klaus Naumann, editors, War of Extermination: The German Military in World War II, 1941–1944 (Studies on War and Genocide; 3), New York, N.Y.: Berghahn Books, published 2009, →ISBN, page 232:

     In Bauske, on 2 July, the local commandant had twenty hostages publicly shot at the Memel bridge by a peloton supplied by the local headquarters, allegedly in "reprisal" for the German soldiers who had fallen in the battles for the town.

Not to be confused with peleton (“small pellet or ball”).

• peloton on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• peloton (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• glossary of cycling on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

• ploonet

peloton m

1. peloton

Borrowed from French peloton, derived in turn from pelote +‎ -on.

• Audio

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peloton n (plural pelotons, diminutive pelotonnetje n)

1. platoon
2. (cycling) peloton

• → Caribbean Hindustani: paltan

• ontlope

peloton

1. accusative singular future nominal passive participle of peli

pelko +‎ -ton

• IPA^(key): /ˈpeloton/, [ˈpe̞lo̞t̪o̞n]
• Rhymes: -eloton
• Syllabification^(key): pe‧lo‧ton

peloton (comparative pelottomampi, superlative pelottomin)

1. fearless, daring

• pelottomasti
• pelottomuus

• pelko
• pelokas
• pelätä

• peltoon

From pelote +‎ -on.

• IPA^(key): /pə.lɔ.tɔ̃/

• Audio

  (file)

peloton m (plural pelotons)

1. small ball (of thread etc.)
2. (military) platoon
3. pack, bunch (of cyclists etc.)

• peloton d'exécution
• pelotonner, pelotonnement
• pelotonneur

• → English: peloton
• → German: Peloton
• → Spanish: pelotón

• “peloton”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.