a person who serves in an army; a person engaged in military service.
2.
an enlisted man or woman, 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. a member of a caste of sexually underdeveloped female ants or termites specialized, as with powerful jaws, to defend the colony from invaders.
7.
a brick laid vertically with the narrower long face out. Compare rowlock(def. 2).
8.
Informal. a person who avoids work or pretends to work; loafer; malingerer.
–verb (used without object)
9.
to act or serve as a soldier.
10.
Informal. to loaf while pretending to work; malinger: He was soldiering on the job.
—Verb phrase
11.
soldier on, to persist steadfastly in one's work; persevere: to soldier on until the work is done.
Origin: 1250–1300; ME souldiour < OF soudier, so(l)dier, equiv. to soulde pay (< L solidus;see sol2) + -ier-ier2
An active, loyal, or militant follower of an organization.
A sexually undeveloped form of certain ants and termites, having large heads and powerful jaws.
One of a group of honeybees that swarm in defense of a hive.
intr.v.
sol·diered, sol·dier·ing, sol·diers
To be or serve as a soldier.
To make a show of working in order to escape punishment.
[Middle English soudier, mercenary, from Anglo-Norman soudeour, soldeier and Old French soudoior, soudier, both from Old French sol, soud, sou, from Late Latin solidum, soldum, pay, from solidus, solidus; see solidus.] sol'dier·ship' n.
Word History: Why do soldiers fight? One answer is hidden 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 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 mercēs, "pay," and meaning "working for pay." The word could also be used as a noun, one of whose senses was "a soldier of fortune."
[sohl-jer] 
dʒər