Definition of "home guard" []

• A volunteer force formed to defend a homeland while the regular army is fighting elsewhere. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• ""You are ordered to return to Ebinissia, to put Cyrilla under arrest for her own protection, to release Jebra, and to return to this army with the seer and all Galean forces except a home guard for the crown city.""
• "One day an altercation took place between a member of each command, the home guard fellow remarking to the old soldier: "You fellows treat these rebels with as much politeness as if they were some of our folks;" to which Shaler's man replied: "And you fellows, who have never smelt powder, treat them as if they were dogs."
• "They called Iverson back to Georgia and put him in charge of a home guard unit or somethin '."