fit out

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fit out (third-person singular simple present fits out, present participle fitting out, simple past and past participle fitted out)

1. (idiomatic) To provide a thing, a group, a person or oneself with requisites; to kit out.
   • 1836 October, Washington Irving, chapter XXV, in Astoria, or Anecdotes of an Enterprise beyond the Rocky Mountains. , volume II, Philadelphia, Pa.: [Henry Charles] Carey, Lea, & Blanchard, →OCLC, page 217:

     On hearing of this determination, Mr. [John Jacob] Astor immediately proceeded to fit out a ship called the Enterprise, to sail in company with the Adams, freighted with additional supplies and reinforcements for Astoria.

   • 1864, Abel D. Streight, Report of Col. Abel D. Streight, August 22, 1864:

     On April 7, 1863, I received orders from General Rosecrans to proceed with the Provisional Brigade ... to Nashville, and to fit out as speedily as possible for an expedition to the interior of Alabama and Georgia, for the purpose of destroying the railroads and other rebel property in that country.

   • 1914, Ernest Scott, The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders, R.N.:

     Moreover, if Bonaparte had wished to acquire territory in Australia, he was not so foolish a person as to fit out an expedition estimated to cost over half a million francs, and which actually cost a far larger sum, when he could have obtained what he wanted simply by asking.

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