MERCENARY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does mercenary mean? 

• MERCENARY (noun)
  The noun MERCENARY has 1 sense:

1. a person hired to fight for another country than their own

  Familiarity information: MERCENARY used as a noun is very rare.

• MERCENARY (adjective)
  The adjective MERCENARY has 3 senses:

1. marked by materialism

2. serving for wages in a foreign army

3. profit oriented

  Familiarity information: MERCENARY used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• MERCENARY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A person hired to fight for another country than their own

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

mercenary; soldier of fortune

Hypernyms ("mercenary" is a kind of...):

adventurer; venturer (a person who enjoys taking risks)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "mercenary"):

ninja (a member of the ninja who were trained in martial arts and hired for espionage or sabotage or assassinations; a person skilled in ninjutsu)

Derivation:

mercenary (serving for wages in a foreign army)

• MERCENARY (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Marked by materialism

Synonyms:

materialistic; mercenary; worldly-minded

Similar:

secular; temporal; worldly (characteristic of or devoted to the temporal world as opposed to the spiritual world)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Serving for wages in a foreign army

Synonyms:

free-lance; freelance; mercenary

Context example:

mercenary killers

Similar:

paid (marked by the reception of pay)

Derivation:

mercenary (a person hired to fight for another country than their own)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Profit oriented

Synonyms:

mercantile; mercenary; moneymaking

Context example:

a moneymaking business

Similar:

commercial (connected with or engaged in or sponsored by or used in commerce or commercial enterprises)

 Context examples 

“But my dear Elizabeth,” she added, “what sort of girl is Miss King? I should be sorry to think our friend mercenary.”

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

It strikes me as dull, and stupid, and mercenary, and tricky.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

You don't really think I am such a mercenary creature as I tried to be once, do you?

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

It would be better for yourself, and all of us, if you WERE mercenary, Mr. Copperfield—I mean, if you were more discreet and less influenced by all this youthful nonsense.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Well then, on that mercenary ground, will you agree to let me hector a little?

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

It is an advantage to get about in such a case without taking a mercenary into your confidence.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Above all, he was amazed to hear me talk of a mercenary standing army, in the midst of peace, and among a free people.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Sick of ambitious and mercenary connexions, prizing more and more the sterling good of principle and temper, and chiefly anxious to bind by the strongest securities all that remained to him of domestic felicity, he had pondered with genuine satisfaction on the more than possibility of the two young friends finding their natural consolation in each other for all that had occurred of disappointment to either; and the joyful consent which met Edmund's application, the high sense of having realised a great acquisition in the promise of Fanny for a daughter, formed just such a contrast with his early opinion on the subject when the poor little girl's coming had been first agitated, as time is for ever producing between the plans and decisions of mortals, for their own instruction, and their neighbours' entertainment.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

I figure to myself that the task of attending on your sickbed has devolved on some mercenary old nurse, who could never guess your wishes nor minister to them with the care and affection of your poor cousin.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

“Well,” cried Elizabeth, “have it as you choose. He shall be mercenary, and she shall be foolish.”

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)