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It was a mere distraction to tend his wounds and send him off the battleground.

I don't know if the bolded part of the sentence is correct or not. It does sound right, although I'm not quite sure if it's grammatically correct. I need specific idiom or phrase to describe "forcing someone to leave a place".

I'll try to describe the situation to explain what I mean. Imagine, a soldier has been injured badly and his commander ordered him to leave the battlefield, due to being wounded critically. This soldier is obliged to obey his commander's orders, he likes it or not. I want to write it from the commander's point of view and how can I say that?

Is "send someone off the battleground" grammatically correct? How about "send someone away from the battleground"?

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  • Generally the verb "evict" is used to mean forcibly causing someone to leave a place. But not clear that it fits here.
    – Hot Licks
    Aug 9, 2017 at 21:34
  • bounce, as in bouncer
    – Drew
    Aug 9, 2017 at 21:54
  • The word you used in your explanation works well: the commander ordered him off the battlefield. I'm a little more confused by the first part of your sentence—was the commander distracted by having to care for the wounded soldier, or were the wound tending and battleground eviction meant to distract the soldier somehow?
    – 1006a
    Aug 9, 2017 at 22:23

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To banish someone is to order them to leave a place - although it carries the additional connotation that they mustn't ever return until expressly permitted to do so, and it isn't a military expression.

If someone is ordered to leave, you can also say they have been sine died - often pronounced as 'sin dyed' - from the Latin for 'without a day [when they may return]'. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/sine_die ... but that's not appropriate here.

However, a commander in battle is more likely to give a terse and specific order, rather than a vague one. So from the commander's point of view, the sentence might end, "order him to attend the medical tent", or "command his retreat to camp", or just, "dispatch him from the field".

In any case, the original sentence, "It was a mere distraction to tend his wounds and send him off the battleground", is grammatical and makes perfect sense.

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Relieve him of his duty?

Retire him from his post?

Discharge him from the battlefield?

One might also use "exile", but it doesn't seem applicable here.

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