shtrafbat means A Soviet penal battalion that fought on the Eastern Front in World War II. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 85 out of 100.
Why “shtrafbat” is a great word
SHTRAFBAT — [Noun] A Soviet penal battalion of convicts and disgraced soldiers, deployed as a disciplinary combat unit on the Eastern Front during the Second World War. From Russian штрафбат (štrafbat), a compound of штраф (štraf, "penalty, fine") and батальон (batal'on, "battalion"). Unlike "shock troops," which denote elite, vanguard assault units, or "gulag," which signifies the sprawling civilian network of forced labor camps, a *shtrafbat* was a military instrument of atonement through attrition. It is the deliberate advance across a minefield to clear it with the only resource the state deemed expendable, the particular grayness of a uniform stripped of insignia, and the commissar’s pistol aimed at the backs of men already sentenced—a brutal calculus where the sentence of disgrace could only be commuted by death.
noun
- A Soviet penal battalion that fought on the Eastern Front in World War II.