Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[missdaredevil]

Alysia joined the *ranks* of such great explorers like Sir Ernest Shackletion and headed on an expedition to Antartica with Students on Ice, an education program that takes youth on....


Could anyone tell me what that means in that case?

[bud]

You could think of it as "group." It most likely comes from the military where "ranks" are the groups of soldiers. ("Ranks" in this sense is almost always plural. Even so, you would use the singular "group" to replace it in your sample sentence.)