soldier
soldier (sōlʹjər) noun
1. One who serves in an army.
2. An enlisted person or a noncommissioned officer.
3. a. An active, loyal, and militant follower: a soldier in the environmental coalition. b. A trusted follower of an organized crime leader.
4. A sexually undeveloped form of certain ants and termites, having large heads and powerful jaws specialized to serve as fighting weapons.
verb, intransitive
soldiered, soldiering, soldiers
1. To be or serve as a soldier.
2. To make a show of working in order to escape punishment.
[Middle English soudier, mercenary, from Anglo-Norman soudeour, soldeier Old French soudoior, soudier, both from Old French sol, soud, sou, from Late Latin solidum, soldum, pay, from solidus, solidus. See solidus.]
Word History: Why do soldiers fight? One answer is hidden away in the word soldier itself. Its first recorded occurrence is found in a work composed around 1300, the word having come into Middle English (as soudier) from Old French soudoior and Anglo-Norman soudeour. The Old French word, first recorded in the 12th century, is derived from sol or soud, Old French forms of Modern French sou. There is no longer a French coin named sou, but the meaning of the word sou alerts us to the fact that money is involved. Indeed, Old French sol referred to a coin and also meant "pay," and a soudoior was a man who fought for pay. This was a concept worth expressing in an era when many men were not paid for fighting but did it in service to a feudal superior. Thus soldier is parallel to the word mercenary, which goes back to Latin mercēnnārius, derived from merces,"pay," and meaning "working for pay." The word could also be used as a noun, one of whose senses was "a soldier of fortune."