deserter
Americannoun
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a soldier or draftee who leaves or runs away from service or duty with the intention of never returning.
Deserters from the rebel army tell of low morale among its remaining fighters.
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a person who fails to uphold a cause or who abandons someone else, especially in violation of a promise or obligation.
Some of those remaining in the home country view emigrants living abroad as deserters from their mother culture.
A family deserter is one who can but will not support a spouse or dependents.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of deserter
Explanation
Someone who abandons their responsibilities is a deserter. Being a military deserter is particularly serious, with harsh consequences. Anyone who deserts a post or obligation, abandoning it in an irresponsible, disloyal way, is a deserter. Your friends may call you a deserter if you promise to help them rake leaves but wander home after 20 minutes to watch TV instead. In the military, being a deserter is nearly as bad as being a traitor. During wartime, deserters can face long prison sentences.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
"We were totally flummoxed - we didn't know if we should write Missing, Awol, Deserter, or what," he tells me.
From BBC • Jul. 7, 2018
In court Deserter Buckley told how he had gone from England to Ireland, bought a passage home to Canada.
From Time Magazine Archive
From Congress last week a bill was dispatched to the White House to give Deserter Beryl McHam an honorable discharge and put him on the pension rolls.
From Time Magazine Archive
Grischa, alias Deserter Bjuscheff, was promptly sentenced, whereupon he took refuge in confessing his camouflage.
From Time Magazine Archive
Deserter, they’d thundered in the middle of the graveyard watch.
From "An Ember in the Ashes" by Sabaa Tahir
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
