DRILL. In military science, the word drillen was used in Dutch, German and Danish from the 17th century for training in military exercises and was adopted into English in the same sense. The origin of the application seems to be in the primary sense of "to turn round," from the turning of the troops in their evolutions and from the turning of the weapons in the soldiers' hands. Drill is, formally, the preparation of soldiers for their duties in war by the practice or rehearsal of movements in mili tary order and the handling of arms; and, psychologically, the method of producing in the individual soldier habits of self control and of mechanically precise actions under disturbing con ditions, and of rendering the common instinctive will of a body of men, large or small, amenable to the control of, and susceptible to a stimulus imparted by its commander's will. (See ARMY;