"the service"

[Jonathan Lighter]

OED doesn't quite capture U.S. usage under "service," 5b.  In the '40s, '50s, and '60s, certainly, this was the everyday synonym for "the armed forces in general as an occupation or career." The OED exx., by way of contrast, clearly point to *either* the army or the navy (or latterly the air force, etc.) "according to the implication of the context," as the definition has it.

  But in (more recent ?) U.S. usage, the "implication of the context" has nothing to do with it. "Just got out of the service" needs no antecedent; it means, literally, "just got out of the armed forces."   If this was true in much older English, the OED exx. don't convey it - not to me, anyway.

  Nowadays it seems that the most usual synonym is simply "the military."

  JL


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