soldier

[sohl-jer]

noun

1. a person who serves in an army; a person engaged in military service.

2. an enlisted person, as distinguished from a commissioned officer.

   the soldiers' mess and the officers' mess.

3. a person of military skill or experience.

   George Washington was a great soldier.

4. a person who contends or serves in any cause.

   a soldier of the Lord.

5. Also called button man. Slang.,  a low-ranking member of a crime organization or syndicate.

6. Entomology.

   1. a member of a caste of sexually underdeveloped female ants or termites specialized, as with powerful jaws, to defend the colony from invaders.

   2. a similar member of a caste of worker bees, specialized to protect the hive.

7. a brick laid vertically with the narrower long face out.

8. Informal.,  a person who avoids work or pretends to work; loafer; malingerer.

verb (used without object)

1. to act or serve as a soldier.

2. Informal.,  to loaf while pretending to work; malinger.

   He was soldiering on the job.

verb phrase

1. soldier on,  to persist steadfastly in one's work; persevere.

   to soldier on until the work is done.

soldier

/ ˈsəʊldʒə /

noun

1. 1. a person who serves or has served in an army

   2. Also called: common soldier. a noncommissioned member of an army as opposed to a commissioned officer

2. a person who works diligently for a cause

3. a low-ranking member of the Mafia or other organized crime ring

4. zoology

   1. an individual in a colony of social insects, esp ants, that has powerful jaws adapted for defending the colony, crushing large food particles, etc

   2. ( as modifier )

      soldier ant

5. informal,  a strip of bread or toast that is dipped into a soft-boiled egg

verb

1. to serve as a soldier

2. obsolete,  to malinger or shirk

Other Word Forms

• soldiership noun
• nonsoldier noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of soldier¹

First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English souldiour, from Old French soudier, so(i)dier, equivalent to soulde “pay” (from Latin solidus; sol ² ) + -ier -ier ²

Word History and Origins

Origin of soldier¹

C13: from Old French soudier, from soude (army) pay, from Late Latin solidus a gold coin, from Latin: firm

Example Sentences

Outside, France’s largest World War I cemetery contains the graves of more than 16,000 French soldiers.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

The plaque that previously labelled the statue read "author, poet, scholar, soldier, jurist, orator, philanthropist and philosopher".

Read more on BBC

Residents commonly report being visited a half-dozen times by his door-knocking foot soldiers.

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Only weeks after the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the emperor’s soldiers swept south through Malaya, often riding on cheap pushbikes in an assault dubbed “the bicycle blitzkrieg.”

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"And there was some stuff that I did agree with. I wasn't in charge. I was a normal soldier."

Read more on BBC

Related Words

• commando 
• fighter 
• guard 
• guerrilla 
• marine 
• mercenary 
• officer 
• paratrooper 
• pilot 
• trooper 
• veteran 
• volunteer