Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use mercenary in a sentence

26 example sentences · noun, adjective

Mercenary means one motivated by gain, especially monetary. Example: “The mercenaries plundered all the goods they found.”

Examples of mercenary by meaning

nounA person employed to fight in an armed conflict who is not a member of the state or military group for which they are...

  • If a mercenary died, that was one fewer man to pay.2004, Matthew Trundle, Greek Mercenaries: From the Late Archaic Period to Alexander
  • The combat fatigues worn by the vehicle personnel did not appear to be standard military issue, more similar to what you would expect mercenaries to wear.2005, Karl Arthur, The Calling, page 62

adjectiveMotivated by personal gain.

  • Success is never so interesting as struggle—not even to the successful, not even to the most mercenary forms of ambition.1932 July 16 (date written), Willa Cather, “Preface”, in The Song of the Lark, Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Houghton Mifflin Company […]...

More sentences with mercenary

  • The mercenaries plundered all the goods they found.From the entry plunder
  • The mercenaries plundered the small town.From the entry plunder
  • The mercenary tactics of some fans no doubt fuel this fantagonism.2015, Liam Burke, The Comic Book Film Adaptation: Exploring Modern Hollywood's Leading Genre, unnumbered page. From the entry fantagonism
  • The Giantling was furious, but the mercenary turned Lord was not daunted.2011, J.A. Giunta, Only The Strong. From the entry giantling
  • He was a mercenary, a sell-sword, a barbarian out of the forested mountains of Norumbria.1977, Gardner Francis Fox, “Shadow of a Demon”, in The Year's Best Fantasy Stories: 3, →ISBN, page 32. From the entry sell-sword
  • It could also include a bar upon specific individuals or categories of persons (e.g. mercenaries) entering the embargoed State.2023, Terry D. Gill, Kinga Tibori-Szabó, The Use of Force and the International Legal System, page 284. From the entry embargoed
  • The Wagner Group of mercenaries is actively recruiting video-gamers to boost its ranks amid the war in Ukraine.2023 June 21, Brendan Cole, “Wagner Group recruiting Russian gamers to fly drones into Ukraine”, in Miami Herald, volume 120, number 280…. From the entry video-gamer
  • Born in a small mercenary outpost outside Hierarchy space, he learned the hard way to fight for what he wanted.2010s, “Spectre Agent Nihlus Kryik”, in BioWare, archived from the original on 17 Mar 2013. From the entry decorated
  • In this varied, often mountainous terrain, the Mongols were out of their element, and they relied on local mercenaries for support.2007, Laurence Bergreen, Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu, Alfred A. Knopf, →ISBN, page 183. From the entry out of one's element
  • It was the contraktniki – mercenaries – who did it.'2000 October 15, John Sweeney, “Cries from Putin's torture pit: One year on, John Sweeney returns to Chechnya to speak to survivors of…. From the entry contraktnik
  • "Dogs of War" is about--surprise!--mercenaries, the fall-back subject of choice for every overly testosteroned rock musician since the Creation.1988 January 15, Bill Wyman, “The four phases of Pink Floyd”, in Chicago Reader. From the entry testosteroned
  • The Almoravid army was a strange rabble of Arabs, Berbers, blacks, wild tribes of the Sahara and Christian mercenaries.1920 October, Edith Wharton, In Morocco, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. From the entry Almoravid
  • The Deadpool fly is a species of Robber fly, which are “assassins of the insect world” – fitting for the mercenary antihero.2020 July 29, Jessie Yeung, “Australia names new species after Deadpool, Thor, and other Marvel favorites”, in CNN, archived from the…. From the entry antihero
  • The Turkmen were the mainstay of the Saljuq army but they were supplemented by Turkish slave soldiers and mercenaries, often of Kurdish ancestry.2018, The Wiley Blackwell History of Islam. From the entry Saljuq
  • France's return to Comoros was, above all, conspicuous through the actions of the mercenary leader Bob Denard and his team of affreux ('dreadful').2015, Tor Sellström, Africa in the Indian Ocean: Islands in Ebb and Flow, →ISBN, page 169. From the entry affreux
  • From this, we can understand that 74 percent of the mercenaries are patronaged and supported by the politicians either of the ruling or opposition party.2004, C.K. Gandhirajan, Organized Crime, APH Publishing Corporation, →ISBN, page 147. From the entry patronage
  • These were mostly, but not exclusively, members of the Baluba tribe and had fled the persecution of Munongo's mercenary affreux and their black rank-and-file.2003, Máire O'Brien, The same age as the state, page 249. From the entry affreux
  • However, if you come across kids of the really mercenary kind, then you wish you could snatch back the ang pow from their greedy hands.1996, Su Kim Lee, Malaysian flavours: insights into things Malaysian, page 88. From the entry ang pow
  • China’s “wolf warrior” diplomats — named after a set of films in which Chinese special-operations fighters defeat western-led mercenaries — have emerged over the past three years.2020 May 12, Kathrin Hille, “‘Wolf warrior’ diplomats reveal China’s ambitions”, in Financial Times, archived from the original on 03 Jul…. From the entry wolf warrior
  • They were titushky, mercenary agents who supported the Ukrainian police during President Yanukovych’s administration, who were now in desperate need of a paycheck, one Guimond had arranged.2017, Rick Campbell, Blackmail, New York: St. Martin’s Press, →ISBN, pages 102–3. From the entry titushky
  • I have never really been outdoorsy enough to make a mercenary landsknecht, although their immense two-handed swords, flowing moustaches and puffed-silk slashed sleeves take some beating.2013, Simon Winder, Danubia, Picador, published 2014, page 55. From the entry lansquenet
  • They do it circumventingly, as the Soviets are doing through their Cuban mercenaries in Africa, but they don’t like to bear the accusation of fomenting war.1978 September 10, “[Editorial opinion] Outlawing war”, in Kokomo Tribune, volume 128, number 7, Kokomo, Ind., page 4, column 3. From the entry circumventingly
  • The New World was experiencing the cruelties of many of these mercenary adventurers whose religious medals, Crucifixes and Rosary mumblings were varnishments of a ferocious quest for gold.1969, K. T. Wills, Vanozza: A Novel of the Enigmatical Borgias of the Renaissance. From the entry varnishment

Meaning of mercenary

  1. noun One motivated by gain, especially monetary.
  2. noun A person employed to fight in an armed conflict who is not a member of the state or military group for which they are fighting and whose primary motivation is private gain.
  3. noun One hired to engage in a figurative battle, as a corporate takeover, a lawsuit, or a political campaign.

Full definition of mercenary

Questions about mercenary in a sentence

How do you use mercenary in a sentence?
Mercenary is used as a noun and adjective. For example: “The mercenaries plundered all the goods they found.”
What is a short sentence with mercenary?
“The mercenaries plundered the small town.”
What does mercenary mean?
Mercenary means one motivated by gain, especially monetary.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mercenary (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use mercenary in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/mercenary. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.