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mercenaries

[mur-suh-ner-ee]

Example Sentences Origin

adjective

working or acting merely for money or other reward; venal.

hired to serve in a foreign army, guerrilla organization, etc.

noun

a professional soldier hired to serve in a foreign army.

any hireling.

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Mercenaries is always a great word to know.

So is bezoar. Does it mean:

a calculus or concretion found in the stomach or intestines of certain animals, esp. ruminants, formerly reputed to be an effective remedy for poison.

an arrangement of five objects, as trees, in a square or rectangle, one at each corner and one in the middle.

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Origin:
1350–1400; Middle English mercenarie < Latin mercēnnārius working for pay, hired worker, mercenary, perhaps, representing earlier *mercēd(i)nārius, equivalent to *mercēdin-, stem of *mercēdō, a by-form of mercēs, stem mercēd- payment, wage (akin to merx goods; compare merchant) + -ārius -ary

Related forms

mer·ce·nar·i·ly

[mur-suh-nair-uh-lee, mur-suh-ner-] , adverb

mer·ce·nar·i·ness, noun

non·mer·cen·ar·y, adjective, noun, plural -ar·ies.

un·mer·ce·nar·i·ly, adverb

un·mer·ce·nar·i·ness, noun

EXPAND

un·mer·ce·nar·y, adjective

COLLAPSE

Synonyms
1. grasping, acquisitive, avaricious, covetous.

Antonyms
1. altruistic, idealistic, unselfish.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Link To mercenaries

Example Sentences

No democracy, and certainly not ours, should ever fight a war with mercenaries.

Liberian mercenaries are involved on the other side as well.

Maybe it's the way a court wizard will hire mercenaries to hunt you down for stealing his potions.

EXPAND

No democracy, and certainly not ours, should ever fight a war with mercenaries.

Liberian mercenaries are involved on the other side as well.

Maybe it's the way a court wizard will hire mercenaries to hunt you down for stealing his potions.

The law on mercenaries is drafted too narrowly to apply to private guards.

Mercenaries is a pejorative and distinctly cruel word for a reason.

In the course of this testimony, he made the statement that he did not want to command an army of mercenaries.

Now imagine paying a small team of mercenaries to protect the hardware from tinkering and theft.

Instead, researchers have become intellectual mercenaries for product teams: they are there to solve immediate needs.

But only his inner circle and paid mercenaries were allowed inside.

We hire mercenaries to mask the actual fiscal and human costs of the war.

The charges filed against the group say that they had hired mercenaries to blow up government buildings in the.

Learn how specially designed vehicle armor and customized weapons help these mercenaries survive being targeted by insurgents.

The planet sends out a volunteer to find mercenaries.

Otherwise trade is primarily in asbestos clothing and mercenaries.

Muammar el-Qaddafi is still in power, protected by loyalists and mercenaries.

Behind the tanks come the mercenaries and neither will be stopped by a now-fly zone.

And it's responsible for one of the largest chunks of money provided to mercenaries in the entire federal government.

The picture opens in utter confusion as a band of mercenaries swoops down on a little river-landing outpost.

With more mercenaries being recruited to join the fight, a rout of the poorly armed insurgents could happen within days.

Installation of a no-fly zone over government controlled airspace to prevent any further influx of mercenaries.

Your last two books were on mercenaries and child soldiers.

His base of support is now only diehard allies and foreign mercenaries.

His mercenaries are not killing foreign troops, but his own citizens.

Enough of the mercenaries in the executive suites, and the elites in the board rooms.

And all they had was geography and mercenaries and byzantine cunning for much of that time to keep them going.

COLLAPSE

Etymonline

Word Origin & History

mercenary

late 14c., "one who works only for hire," from L. mercenarius "one who does anything for pay," lit. "hired, paid," from merces (gen. mercedis) "pay, reward, wages," from merx (see market). The adj. is recorded from 1530s.

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Matching Quote

"They were fanatical men and women, young and old, all deeply touched by the great rousing call of the revolution, gladly willing to fight for the sake of humanity and to sacrifice themselves. There were strangely excited and intense figures among them, believers: believers in this world and utopians who dreamed of eternal peace. And though they were weak and they were few, they towered miles above the miserable figures of the little philistine Ebert and the wooden Noske with his mercenaries, who would soon raise their cudgels and smash them."

-Alfred Döblin

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