expedition

noun

1. (countable, obsolete, uncountable)The act of expediting something; prompt execution.

   “My Lord the great Commander of the worlde, […] Hath now in armes ten thouſand Ianiſaries, […] And for the expedition of this war, If he thinke good, can from his garriſons, UUithdraw as many more to follow him.”

2. (countable, uncountable)A military journey; an enterprise against some enemy or into enemy territory.

   “Once established in their capital at Nanking, occupied March, 1853, and renamed “Heavenly Capital” (T’ien-ching), the Taipings sent out an expedition to take Peking which again made striking gains initially, but was eventually slowed, isolated, and defeated.”

3. (archaic, countable, uncountable)The quality of being expedite; speed, quickness.

   “one of them began to come nearer our boat than at first I expected; but I lay ready for him, for I had loaded my gun with all possible expedition […].”

   “he presently exerted his utmost agility, and with surprizing expedition ascended the hill.”

   “He saw the same Turnkey unfetter a man / With but little expedition, / Which put him in mind of the long debate / On the Slave-trade abolition.”

   “The photographer had photographed, the doctor had certified life extinct, the pathologist had inspected the body in situ as a prelude to conducting his autopsy – all with an expedition quite contrary to the proper pace of things, merely in order to clear the way for the visiting irregular, as the Deputy Assistant Commissioner (Crime and Ops) had liked to call him.”

4. (countable, uncountable)An important or long journey, for example a march or a voyage.
5. (countable, uncountable)A trip, especially a long one, made by a person or a group of people for a specific purpose.

   “a naval expedition”

   “a scientific expedition”

   “an expedition across the Alps”

6. (collective, countable, uncountable)The group of people making such excursion.
7. (countable, uncountable)The process or activities of performing expediter tasks.

verb

1. (intransitive)To take part in a trip or expedition; to travel.

   “The attendance was given color by the ISO women who graced some of the sessions, attended the social events and expeditioned around the famous spots in Washington and its periphery area.”

   “I feel uprooted from the vital connections to Salley, to home, stranded with only the mountain and my fellow madmen as company. These thoughts appear like a mirage, a hallucination, a symptom of the schizophrenia of expeditioning.”