Other forms: deployed, deploying, deploys
In software, to deploy is to put new code where real users will meet it. Deploy to production, a failed deploy, deploy on a Friday.
Deploying on a Friday afternoon is the standing joke and the standing warning, because whoever deploys is whoever fixes it at the weekend. Continuous deployment means releasing many times a day rather than in large occasional batches. The military sense is to move troops into position: deployed overseas. And generally it means to bring something into use: deploy an argument. Note deployment.
1verbdeployTo put new code where real users will meet it.
“The developers deployed the update to the live website on Monday morning.”
2verbmoveTo move troops or resources into position.
“The government deployed extra troops to the border.”
deploy is a putting into position.
The Latin is to fold. To deploy troops is the fold undone: spread out across the ground instead of packed together.
hooks ontofold
French déployer means to unfold or unroll, from Latin displicare — dis- plus plicare, to fold. Deploying troops is unfolding them from a column into a line, and the software sense borrowed the military one.
Proto-Indo-European
*pleḱ-
Latin
displicāre — to unfold, display
Old French
desploiier
French
déployer — to unroll, unfold
English, today
deploy
Built from
Borrowed from French déployer (“to unroll, unfold”), from Old French desploiier, itself from des- + ploiier, or possibly from Latin displicāre (“to unfold, display”), from Latin dis- (“apart”) + plicare (“to fold”). Compare Middle English desployen,dysployen (“to unfold, display”). a doublet of display.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA