Rank

(redirected from breaking ranks)
Also found in: Dictionary, Thesaurus, Medical, Idioms, Encyclopedia.

RANK. The order or place in which certain officers are placed in the army and navy, in relation to others, is called their rank.
2. It is a maxim, that officers of, an inferior rank are bound to obey all the lawful commands of their superiors, and are justified for such obedience.

A Law Dictionary, Adapted to the Constitution and Laws of the United States. By John Bouvier. Published 1856.

References in periodicals archive ?

It's encouraging to see states and councils in the USA breaking ranks with Bush in an effort to combat global warming

Vital that we all make a green effort

This publication is the follow-up to the 1996 Breaking Ranks: Changing an American Institution, which challenged secondary school leaders "interested in transforming high schools into zones of achievement, high expectation, and continuous improvement" (p.

Breaking Ranks II: Strategies For Leading High School Reform

In 2004, NASSP released Breaking Ranks II: Strategies for Leading High School Reform, a principal's handbook to high school improvement.

NASSP sees a role for CTE in high school reform

The division between old-school establishmentarians and neo-conservative advocates of global democratic revolution has been thrust into the open by an October 31 feature story in The New Yorker entitled "Breaking Ranks: What Turned Brent Scowcroft Against the Bush Administration?"

Insider rift over Iraq

Charged with the task of presenting a paper loosely based on Wales and enterprise culture (or lack of it), he did not hold back from breaking ranks with his former party colleagues in the Assembly (some of whom were present!) in decrying the changes now being put in place at the Welsh Development Agency, and the moves to subsume its func- tions in the National Assembly.

Wigley fears a vital ingredient will be lost with end of the WDA

This was not some loud-mouthed but largely irrelevant backbencher breaking ranks on a point of principle.