mercenary's Usage Examples:

It estranged from the king the hearts of all his French subjects, who were already sufficiently disgusted by~ many minor acts of brutality, as well as by incessant arbitrary taxation and by the reckless ravages in which Johns mercenary troops had been indulging.

He further made the cohort the military unit instead of the maniple, and his cavalry and light-armed troops were drawn from foreign countries, so that it may be said that Marius was the originator of the mercenary army.

At this very time northern Hungary, including the wealthy mining towns, was in the possession of the Hussite mercenary Jan Giszkra, who held them nominally for the infant king Ladislaus V.

The poverty-stricken and barbarous Nubians were strong and courageous, and gladly served in Egypt as mercenary soldiers and police.

The neighbouring lords attacked and ravaged the municipal territories; grave injuries were inflicted by the mercenary bands, especially by the Bretons and Gascons.

Indeed Johns few trusted confidants were nearly all foreigners, such men as the mercenary captains Gerard of Athies and Engelhart of Cigogn, whom he made sheriffs and castellans to the discontent of all Englishmen.

"Zwingli indeed seemed still to be devoted to the pope, whom he styled "beatissimus Christi vicarius," and he publicly proclaimed the mercenary aid given by the Swiss to the papal cause to be its dutiful support of the Holy See.

'Giving him the title of senator, he sent him to Italy with the legate, Cardinal Albornoz, and having collected a few mercenary troops on the way, Rienzi entered Rome in August 13 54.

Having been recently defeated in Lincoln, they were hard pressed, and reinforcements were sent to them from Calais in a fleet commanded by a pirate and mercenary soldier called Eustace the Monk.

Silesia remained a principal objective of the various contending armies and was occupied almost continuously by a succession of ill-disciplined mercenary forces whose depredations and exactions, accentuated at times by religious fanaticism, reduced the country to a state of helpless misery.

The Netherlanders detested the Spaniards and everything Spanish, and this foreign mercenary force, together with the new bishops, was looked upon as part of a general plan for the gradual overthrow of their rights and liberties.

Not having received satisfaction he became a freebooter on land and sea, and mercenary soldier.

Synonyms:

adventurer, soldier of fortune, ninja, venturer,

Antonyms:

monastical, nonprofessional, salaried, nonworker, unprofitable,