echelon

Meanings

1. A level or rank in an organization, profession, or society.
2. A line of riders seeking maximum drafting in a crosswind, resulting in a diagonal line across the road.
3. A formation of troops, ships, aircraft, etc., in diagonal parallel rows.

1. To form troops into an echelon.

1. Of a matrix: having undergone Gaussian elimination with the result that the leading coefficient or pivot (that is, the first nonzero number from the left) of a nonzero row is to the right of the pivot of the row above it, giving rise to a stepped appearance in the matrix.

1. An international SIGINT network to monitor and gather intelligence from satellite trunk communications.

Etymology

Borrowed from French échelon (“rung; echelon”), from échelle (“ladder”) + -on (diminutive suffix). Échelle is derived from Latin scāla (“ladder”), from scandō (“to ascend, climb”), from Proto-Indo-European *skend- (“to jump”).