maneuver

Meanings

Noun

• The planned movement of troops, vehicles etc.; a strategic repositioning; a large training field-exercise of fighting units.
• Any strategic or cunning action; a stratagem.
• A movement of the body, or with an implement, instrument etc., especially one performed with skill or dexterity.
• A specific medical or surgical movement, often eponymous, done with the doctor's hands or surgical instruments.
• A controlled (especially skilful) movement taken while steering a vehicle.

Verb

• To move (something, or oneself) carefully, and often with difficulty, into a certain position.
• To guide, steer, manage purposefully
• To intrigue, manipulate, plot, scheme

Origin

• From Middle French manœuvre ("manipulation, maneuver") and manouvrer, from Old French manovre ("handwork, manual labor"), from Medieval Latin manopera, manuopera, from manu + operari. First recorded in the Capitularies of Charlemagne (800 AD) to mean "chore, manual task", probably as a calque of the Frankish *handwerc ("hand-work"). Compare Old English handweorc, Old English handġeweorc, German Handwerk. The verb is a doublet of the verb manure.