corporal's guard

English

Noun

corporal's guard

  1. (military) A small detachment of guards under the charge of a corporal.
  2. (by extension) A very small number of people.
    • 1863, Theodore Winthrop, edited by G. W. Curtis, Life in the Open Air, and Other Papers, Washington as a Camp:
      Our thousand did the Capitol little harm that a corporal’s guard of Biddies with mops and tubs could not repair in a forenoon’s campaign.

References

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