unsoldierly
unsoldierly adjective: not soldierly, not appropriate for a soldier.
Adjective
unsoldierly (comparative more unsoldierly, superlative most unsoldierly)
- Not soldierly, not appropriate for a soldier.
- His desertion was condemned as an unsoldierly act of cowardice.
- For which most unsouldierly & unworthy action […] he had this insuing Judgement pronounced against him […]1644, William Prynne, A Check to Britannicus, London: George Hutton, page 3
- Synonyms:
- unsoldierlike
Adverb
unsoldierly (comparative more unsoldierly, superlative most unsoldierly)
- In a manner that is not appropriate for a soldier.
- A few of them limped unsoldierly in deference to blistered feet.1881, Ambrose Bierce, “What I Saw of Shiloh”, in The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, New York: Neale, published 1909, page 234
- […] you, soldiers, that shift unsoldierly
The weapons that should be upright, at attention, like stiff grass-blades:1925, Robinson Jeffers, “The Tower Beyond Tragedy”, in Roan Stallion, Tamar, and Other Poems, New York: Modern Library, published 1935, page 32
Examples of unsoldierly in a sentence
- Even Yate, who saw it happen, betrays an unsoldierly sigh.1937, Robert Byron, The Road to Oxiana, London: Macmillan, Part 3, p. 98:
- Sweat began to pour from his hair, from his widow’s peak down on to his forehead, and from the back of his head down into his collar. […] Such unsoldierly apprehension was not encouraging.2016, Julian Barnes, The Noise of Time, Random House, Part 1:
Synonyms of unsoldierly
Forms of unsoldierly
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more unsoldierly |
| superlative | most unsoldierly |
| alternative form | unsouldierly |
| Adverb | |
| comparative | more unsoldierly |
| superlative | most unsoldierly |
Origin of unsoldierly
From un- + soldierly.
Words formed from unsoldierly
Questions about unsoldierly
- What does unsoldierly mean?
- Unsoldierly means not soldierly, not appropriate for a soldier.
- How do you use unsoldierly in a sentence?
- Even Yate, who saw it happen, betrays an unsoldierly sigh.
- What part of speech is unsoldierly?
- Unsoldierly can be an adjective or an adverb.
Words near unsoldierly in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: unsoldierly (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “unsoldierly.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/unsoldierly. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.