the.com/patrol
Walking in circles so that bad things happen somewhere else.
means To move through an area on a repeated, watchful round in order to check on or guard it.
from From French patrouiller, which once meant something far less dignified: to paddle or splash about in mud — related to patte, 'paw' or 'foot.' The sense shifted from slogging through muck to marching a military beat, probably because early foot soldiers on watch were, quite literally, trudging through wet and dirty ground. English borrowed the word, mud and all, in the 1600s, and let the muck fade while the walking stayed.
- original sense
- literally meant to paddle in mud
- military roots
- 17th-century French army camp duty
- police adoption
- became standard English policing term by 1800s
- space version
- NASA still calls orbit checks station patrols