mobilization

/moʊbəlɪˈzeɪʃɪn/

/məʊbəlɪˈzeɪʃən/

Other forms: mobilizations

When a government gets its troops prepared for battle, that's mobilization. It's also mobilization when you organize your family to throw a surprise party for your sister.

Preparing a group of people so they're ready to act at a moment's notice is what mobilization is all about. It comes from the verb mobilize, which literally means "to make mobile." Both words have been used in a military context since the 1850s, originally to talk about the Imperial Russian Army and its mobilization at the start of the Crimean War. Before that, mobilization simply meant "rendering capable of movement."

Definitions of mobilization

1. noun

   act of marshaling and organizing and making ready for use or action
   “mobilization of the country's economic resources”

   synonyms: mobilisation

   types:

   economic mobilisation, economic mobilization

   mobilization of the economy

   rallying

   the act of mobilizing for a common purpose

   type of:

   assemblage, assembly, gathering

   the social act of assembling
2. noun

   act of assembling and putting into readiness for war or other emergency: "mobilization of the troops"
   synonyms: militarisation, militarization, mobilisation

   antonyms:

   demobilization

   act of changing from a war basis to a peace basis including disbanding or discharging troops

   types:

   armament, arming, equipping

   the act of equiping with weapons in preparation for war

   conscription, draft, muster, selective service

   compulsory military service

   remilitarisation, remilitarization

   the act of militarizing again

   outfitting

   the act of renovating and fitting out a ship

   rearmament

   the act of arming again

   levy, levy en masse

   the act of drafting into military service

   type of:

   social control

   control exerted (actively or passively) by group action