Adjacent Words

Soldier definitions

	Tweet

Webster's 1828 Dictionary

SOLDIER, n. soljur. [from L. solidus, a piece of money, the pay of a soldier.]
1. A man engaged in military service; one whose occupation is military; a man enlisted for service in an army; a private, or noe in the ranks. There ought to be some time for sober reflection between the life of a soldier and his death.
2. A man enrolled for service, when on duty or embodied for military discipline; a private; as a militia soldier.
3. Emphatically, a brave warrior; a man of military experience and skill, or a man of distinguished valor. In this sense, an officer of any grade may be denominated a soldier.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: an enlisted man or woman who serves in an army; "the soldiers stood at attention"
2: a wingless sterile ant or termite having a large head and powerful jaws adapted for defending the colony v
1: serve as a soldier in the military

Merriam Webster's

I. noun Etymology: Middle English soudeour, from Anglo-French soudeer, soudeour mercenary, from soudee shilling's worth, wage, from sou, soud shilling, from Late Latin solidus solidus Date: 14th century 1. a. one engaged in military service and especially in the army b. an enlisted man or woman c. a skilled warrior 2. a militant leader, follower, or worker 3. a. one of a caste of wingless sterile termites usually differing from workers in larger size and head and long jaws b. one of a type of worker ants distinguished by exceptionally large head and jaws 4. one who shirks work • soldierly adjective or adverb • soldiership noun II. intransitive verb (soldiered; soldiering) Date: 1647 1. a. to serve as a soldier b. to behave in a soldierly manner c. to push doggedly forward — usually used with on <soldiered on to the end> 2. to make a pretense of working while really loafing

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. & v. --n. 1 a person serving in or having served in an army. 2 (in full common soldier) a private or NCO in an army. 3 a military commander of specified ability (a great soldier). 4 (in full soldier ant) a wingless ant or termite with a large head and jaws for fighting in defence of its colony. 5 (in full soldier beetle) a reddish-coloured beetle, Rhagonycha fulva, with flesh-eating larvae. --v.intr. serve as a soldier (was off soldiering). Phrases and idioms: soldier of Christ an active or proselytizing Christian. soldier of fortune an adventurous person ready to take service under any State or person; a mercenary. soldier on colloq. persevere doggedly. Derivatives: soldierly adj. soldiership n. Etymology: ME souder etc. f. OF soudier, soldier f. soulde (soldier's) pay f. L solidus: see SOLIDUS

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Soldier Sol"dier, v. i. 1. To serve as a soldier. 2. To make a pretense of doing something, or of performing any task. [Colloq.U.S.] Note: In this sense the vulgar pronounciation (s[=o]"j[~e]r) is jocosely preserved. It needs an opera glass to discover whether the leaders are pulling, or only soldiering. --C. D. Warner.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Soldier Sol"dier, n. [OE. souldier, soudiour, souder, OF. soldier, soldoier, soldeier, sodoier, soudoier, soudier, fr. L. solidus a piece of money (hence applied to the pay of a soldier), fr. solidus solid. See Solid, and cf. Sold, n.] 1. One who is engaged in military service as an officer or a private; one who serves in an army; one of an organized body of combatants. I am a soldier and unapt to weep. --Shak. 2. Especially, a private in military service, as distinguished from an officer. It were meet that any one, before he came to be a captain, should have been a soldier. --Spenser. 3. A brave warrior; a man of military experience and skill, or a man of distinguished valor; -- used by way of emphasis or distinction. --Shak. 4. (Zo["o]l.) The red or cuckoo gurnard (Trigla pini.) [Prov. Eng.] 5. (Zo["o]l.) One of the asexual polymorphic forms of white ants, or termites, in which the head and jaws are very large and strong. The soldiers serve to defend the nest. See Termite. Soldier beetle (Zo["o]l.), an American carabid beetle (Chauliognathus Americanus) whose larva feeds upon other insects, such as the plum curculio. Soldier bug (Zo["o]l.), any hemipterous insect of the genus Podisus and allied genera, as the spined soldier bug (Podius spinosus). These bugs suck the blood of other insects. Soldier crab (Zo["o]l.) (a) The hermit crab. (b) The fiddler crab. Soldier fish (Zo["o]l.), a bright-colored etheostomoid fish (Etheostoma c[oe]ruleum) found in the Mississippi River; -- called also blue darter, and rainbow darter. Soldier fly (Zo["o]l.), any one of numerous species of small dipterous flies of the genus Stratyomys and allied genera. They are often bright green, with a metallic luster, and are ornamented on the sides of the back with markings of yellow, like epaulets or shoulder straps. Soldier moth (Zo["o]l.), a large geometrid moth (Euschema militaris), having the wings bright yellow with bluish black lines and spots. Soldier orchis (Bot.), a kind of orchis (Orchis militaris).

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(soldiers, soldiering, soldiered) Frequency: The word is one of the 1500 most common words in English. A soldier is a person who works in an army, especially a person who is not an officer. N-COUNT

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

sol'-jer.

See ARMY.

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

n. 1. Warrior, fighting man, man at arms. 2. Private, common soldier. 3. White ant, termite.

1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue

A red herring.

Moby Thesaurus

Amazon, GI, Tommy Atkins, aggressive, air serviceman, ant, army ant, bear arms, black ant, bold, brave, cannon fodder, carpenter ant, carry arms, clock watcher, combative, condottiere, continue, courageous, dauntless, do active duty, do duty, dodge, dog it, dogface, doughboy, doughfoot, drive, drudge, duck, duck duty, emmet, endure, enlisted man, eye-servant, fearless, fighter, fighting man, fire ant, food for powder, free lance, get out of, goldbrick, goldbricker, goof off, grind, guerrilla, halberdier, hoplite, house ant, infantryman, intrepid, keep at, keep going, keep on, legionary, malinger, malingerer, man-at-arms, martial, mercenary, militant, military man, navy man, not pull fair, old soldier, partisan, persevere, persist, pikeman, pismire, pugnacious, queen, recruit, red ant, rifle, rifleman, serve, serviceman, shirk, shirker, shoulder a gun, shoulder arms, skulk, skulker, slack, slacker, slave ant, slide out of, slip out of, sneak out of, soldier of fortune, soldierly, spearman, stalwart, supporter, swaddy, sweat, tax dodger, termite, trooper, truant, unafraid, valiant, valorous, warlike, warrior, warrioress, wear the uniform, welsh, welsher, worker