cohort

noun

1. A group of people supporting the same thing or person.

   “Coyness and caprice have in consequence become a heritage of the sex, together with a cohort of allied weaknesses and petty deceits, that men have come to think venial, and even amiable, in women, but which they would not tolerate among themselves.”

   “A sin, an instant of rebellious pride of the intellect, made Lucifer and a third part of the cohorts of angels fall from their glory.”

   “A lost dog? — Yes. No succoring cohort surges to the relief. A gang of boys, perhaps, may give chase, but assuredly not in kindness.”

2. A demographic grouping of people, especially those in a defined age group, or having a common characteristic.

   “The 18–24 cohort shows a sharp increase in automobile fatalities over the proximate age groupings.”

   “The elderly are market segments, by generations or microgenerations within age cohorts or by historical experience as personality types.”

   ““Zillennials refer to a small cohort born between the early 1990s and the early 2000s,” said Deborah Carr, professor of sociology and director of the Center for Innovation in Social Science at Boston University. “They’re on the cusp of Gen Z and millennial, thus the mash-up label of zillennial.””

   “Regularly eating red and processed meats in particular is associated with a higher risk of type 2 diabetes, according to an analysis of data from 31 study cohorts published Tuesday in the journal The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology.”

3. (Ancient-Rome, historical)Any division of a Roman legion, normally of about 500 or 600 men (equalling about six centuries).

   “Holonym: legion”

   “Meronyms: maniple, century”

   “Three cohorts of men were assigned to the region.”

   “But he lost the whole of his first cohort and the centurion of the first line, a man of high rank in his own class, Asinius Dento, and the other centurions of the same cohort, as well as a military tribune, Sext. Lucilius, son of T. Gavius Caepio, a man of wealth, and high position.”

   “The cohort in which he was centurion was probably the Cohors II Italica civium Romanorum, which a recently discovered inscription proves to have been stationed in Syria before a. d. 69.”

4. An accomplice; abettor; associate.

   “He was able to plea down his sentence by revealing the names of three of his cohorts, as well as the source of the information.”

5. Any band or body of warriors.

   “He ceas’d; and th’ Archangelic Power prepar’d / For ſwift deſcent, with him the Cohort bright / Of watchful Cherubim; […]”

6. A natural group of orders of organisms, less comprehensive than a class.
7. A colleague.
8. A set of individuals in a program, especially when compared to previous sets of individuals within the same program.

   “The students in my cohort for my organic chemistry class this year are not up to snuff. Last year's cohort scored much higher averages on the mid-term.”

   “Apprenticeship programmes supply the industry with an ongoing cohort of qualified talent. It is much cheaper to train new people than to pay inflated wages to attract existing talent. Apprenticeships are also a useful way of teaching the practical, hands-on skills that the modern railway needs.”

9. (slang)A fan of American author Colleen Hoover (born 1979).

   “To the CoHorts for your unrivaled support.”

   “Fans — they call themselves “CoHorts” — get tattoos inspired by her work and vote her books to the top of reader polls.”

   “Her fans (they call themselves CoHorts) point to these unexpected pivots as part of Hoover's appeal.”

   “Hoover is affectionately called Coho^([sic]) by her enormous fan base, who refer to themselves as CoHorts!”

verb

1. To associate with such a group.