MERCENARY • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Mercenary

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/mˈərsənˌɛri/ Listen

noun

Mercenary n. (pl. mercenaries) One who is hired; a hireling; especially, a soldier hired into foreign service.

adjective

Mercenary adj.

Acting for reward; serving for pay; paid; hired; hireling; venal; as, mercenary soldiers.

Hence: Moved primarily by considerations of pay or profit; greedy of gain; sordid; selfish. "For God forbid I should my papers blot With mercenary lines, with servile pen."

Synonyms: See Venal.

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Etymology of 'Mercenary'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Mercenary" Quotes from Famous Books

... not be meddled with. Its treasures would be safe. Visitors would be free to come and go. He would give any security that Greece required that the wealth of Apollo should be safe and all go on as before. But he fortified the town, and invited mercenary soldiers till he had an army of five thousand men. As for the priestess of Apollo, from whose lips the oracles came, he demanded that she should continue to be inspired as before, and should give an oracle in his favor. The priestess refused; whereupon he seized her and sought to drag her ...

— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... found cause to think that the tenth part of learning stood or fell with the clergy: nor could I ever but hold it for a sordid and unworthy speech of any churchman who had a competency left him. If therefore ye be loath to dishearten utterly and discontent, not the mercenary crew of false pretenders to learning, but the free and ingenuous sort of such as evidently were born to study, and love learning for itself, not for lucre or any other end but the service of God and of truth, and perhaps that lasting fame ...

— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton

... knew his Fearful position; but that which weighed heaviest upon his heart was a consciousness of the misinterpretations which the world might put upon the motives of his conduct in this elopement, imputing it to selfishness and a mercenary spirit. When about to be searched, ...

— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... soon as peace is restored, we will banish from the kingdom all foreign-born knights, cross-bowmen, serjeants, and mercenary soldiers, who have come with horses and arms to the ...

— The Magna Carta

... he consoled her. "You see, she couldn't have married me, because I didn't know her; and besides, if she's as mercenary as all that she'd have been too clever. The head doctor even had to lend me the money for my ...

— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington

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