soldier
Americannoun
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soldiers
plural
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a person who serves in an army; a person engaged in military service.
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an enlisted person, as distinguished from a commissioned officer.
the soldiers' mess and the officers' mess.
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a person of military skill or experience.
George Washington was a great soldier.
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a person who contends or serves in any cause.
a soldier of the Lord.
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Also called button man. Slang. a low-ranking member of a crime organization or syndicate.
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Entomology.
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a member of a caste of sexually underdeveloped female ants or termites specialized, as with powerful jaws, to defend the colony from invaders.
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a similar member of a caste of worker bees, specialized to protect the hive.
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a brick laid vertically with the narrower long face out.
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Informal. a person who avoids work or pretends to work; loafer; malingerer.
verb (used without object)
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soldiers,
present (3rd person singular)
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soldiered,
past participle, past
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soldiering
present participle
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to act or serve as a soldier.
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Informal. to loaf while pretending to work; malinger.
He was soldiering on the job.
verb phrase
noun
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a person who serves or has served in an army
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Also called: common soldier. a noncommissioned member of an army as opposed to a commissioned officer
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a person who works diligently for a cause
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a low-ranking member of the Mafia or other organized crime ring
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zoology
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an individual in a colony of social insects, esp ants, that has powerful jaws adapted for defending the colony, crushing large food particles, etc
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( as modifier )
soldier ant
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informal a strip of bread or toast that is dipped into a soft-boiled egg
verb
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to serve as a soldier
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obsolete to malinger or shirk
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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soldiersimple
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soldierssimple
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have soldieredperfect
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has soldieredperfect
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am soldieringprogressive
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are soldieringprogressive
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is soldieringprogressive
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have been soldieringperfect progressive
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has been soldieringperfect progressive
Past
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soldieredsimple
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had soldieredperfect
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was soldieringprogressive
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were soldieringprogressive
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had been soldieringperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of soldier
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English souldiour, from Old French soudier, so(i)dier, equivalent to soulde “pay” (from Latin solidus; see sol 2) + -ier -ier 2
Explanation
In a war, soldiers are the people who do the fighting, on the ground, in planes, or from boats. Soldier is also a verb that means to serve in the military, or to continue on through difficult times. What is an army without soldiers? It’s a bunch of guns on the ground. A soldier is the man or woman who fights for their government and carries the weapons, risking their life in the process. The word comes from the Latin solidus, which is the name of the gold coin used to pay soldiers who fought in the Roman army. To “soldier on” means to not give up even when life is tough, like soldiering on through difficult vocabulary.
Vocabulary lists containing soldier
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Occupations
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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.
See Examples For:
Grossman’s work as a reporter during the Soviet Union’s struggle against Germany exceeded anything he might have accomplished as a soldier.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 2026
Ever since she was a small child, Tilly had always wanted to be a soldier.
From BBC ● Aug. 6, 2026
Four Palestinians and an Israeli soldier were also killed in the incident, the original cause of which is disputed.
From BBC ● Aug. 1, 2026
But Xenophon, up to that moment a common soldier, was chosen as corps commander.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 27, 2026
But before the soldier gets up, I say, “Wait. Here. Take this.”
From "The Many Assassinations of Samir, the Seller of Dreams" by Daniel Nayeri
A chief fire officer has praised soldiers for supporting crews tackling wildfires in south Wales.
From BBC ● Aug. 16, 2026
Monahan described the soldiers as "doing an utterly phenomenal job digging trenches and also helping us build fire breaks".
From BBC ● Aug. 16, 2026
She launched a nonprofit group to channel humanitarian aid to soldiers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 15, 2026
Jalale Getachew Birru, an analyst at ACLED, estimates that in early 2024, Tigrayan forces numbered around 270,000 soldiers.
From Barron's ● Aug. 14, 2026
Japanese soldiers enforce a strict seven p.m. curfew.
From "At Last She Stood" by Erin Entrada Kelly
“Even during the depths of Covid, those Hot Pockets soldiered on.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 5, 2026
But I gamely soldiered back into the sunlight and onto the pathways that line the National Mall, each ginger step kicking up dust.
From Slate ● Jun. 5, 2026
She could barely walk, but soldiered on with a smile for the photographers.
From BBC ● Feb. 2, 2026
Meanwhile, the artificial-intelligence boom soldiered on, with strong performance spreading well beyond members of the “Magnificent Seven.”
From MarketWatch ● Dec. 31, 2025
The archaeological record shows that southern Yucatan was abandoned, while Maya cities in the northern part of the peninsula soldiered on or even grew.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
A lot of front-line soldiering has to do with individual will and attitude, not body chemistry.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 30, 2026
That is not the case in the United States anymore, but our financial markets had been soldiering on anyway.
From Slate ● Apr. 8, 2025
He’s a Samaritan scofflaw, soldiering on inside an almost entirely vacated neighborhood next door to the Getty Villa.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 17, 2025
Dismissed for 149 or soldiering on for another milestone next year?
From BBC ● Nov. 23, 2024
Then he spoke of his soldiering days, fighting alongside the Black Prince in Gascony and Brittany.
From "Crispin: The Cross of Lead" by Avi
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.
