FIFTH COLUMN • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Fifth column

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

Listen

noun

fifth column n.

A group of persons inside the battle lines of a territory engaged in a conflict, who secretly sympathize with the enemy, and who engage in espionage or sabotage; sometimes also referred to as a trojan horse.

Hence, any faction of persons within a group who secretly sympathize with an enemy, especially those who engage in activities harmful to the group; an enemy in one's midst; a group of traitors.

See images of 'Fifth column'

Etymology of 'Fifth column'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Fifth column" Quotes from Famous Books

... third, and fourth columns are maxima, showing the highest candle-power which could be procured from each burner when the pressure was adjusted so as to cause consumption to proceed at the most economical rate. The efficiency values in the fifth column, however, are the mean values calculated so as to include all the data referring to each burner. Capelle's results have been reproduced from the original on the basis that 1 bougie decimale equals 0.98 standard English candle, which is the value he himself ascribes to it (1 bougie decimale ...

— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield

... modification was in progress. The original palace ran beside the Rio del Palazzo from S. Mark's towers to the Ponte di Paglia, with a wing along the lagoon. Its width was equal to that from the present Noah or Vine Corner by the Ponte di Paglia to the fifth column from that corner. Its wing extended to the Piazzetta. A wall and moat protected it, the extent of its ramparts being practically identical with the extent of the present building. This, the first, palace was erected in the ninth ...

— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas

Words linked to "Fifth column" : unit, saboteur