infantry
Americannoun
-
soldiers or military units that fight on foot, in modern times typically with rifles, machine guns, grenades, mortars, etc., as weapons.
-
a branch of an army composed of such soldiers.
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of infantry
1570–80; < Italian infanteria, equivalent to infante boy, foot-soldier ( see infant) + -ria -ry
Explanation
Armies usually contain different divisions for different purposes. For example, soldiers on horseback belong to the Cavalry, those who work in communications are in the Signal Corps, and soldiers specially trained to fight on foot are members of the Infantry. It seems somewhat strange to have the word "infant" in a word that refers to a fighting military unit, but the word infantry once referred to the foot soldiers who were too young or too inexperienced to qualify for the cavalry. The word was taken from the Latin word for a youth, infantem, and so evolved into infantry after working its way through the Spanish, Italian, and French, appearing in English in the late 16th Century.
Vocabulary lists containing infantry
The Things They Carried
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The American Civil War
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Ancient Rome - Introductory
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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.
Students are told they can sign up for only one year, including training, and serve specifically in drone units rather than regular infantry, acquiring large payments and valuable technical skills, before returning to their studies.
From BBC • Jul. 3, 2026
El-Obeid hosts an infantry division, an air base, a key oil pipeline and a major tree gum market.
From Barron's • Jun. 29, 2026
Snipers retain a critical role as unjammable assets for infantry support, bad weather operations, and targeting infiltrators, according to some commanders.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 14, 2026
Hegseth served as an Army National Guard infantry officer in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay before becoming a contributor to Fox News in 2014.
From Salon • May 1, 2026
During one futile counterattack, “the French infantry made a gallant show, advancing across the Belgian beet fields with colors unfurled and bugles sounding the shrill notes of the ‘charge.’
From "The War to End All Wars: World War I" by Russell Freedman
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.
