Sample sentences for MERCENARY

2 meanings

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1 —as in:
a mercenary soldier

Definition

a person hired to fight for a country other than their own

mercenary = a person hired to fight for a country other than their own

Other Uses (with this meaning)

For centuries, mercenaries were Switzerland's chief export good.
The armies of the French have thus become mixed, partly mercenary and partly national,
Nicolo Machiavelli -- The Prince

mercenary = foreigners hired to fight

Maybe passersby would think he was a member of the French Foreign Legion or some heroic mercenary.
John Green -- The Fault in Our Stars

mercenary = someone hired to fight

He even considered working as a mercenary bombardier in an attempted coup in a small Caribbean country, and was still thinking it over when the coup was called off.
Laura Hillenbrand -- Unbroken

mercenary = a person hired to fight for a country other than their own

On either side of him stood two armed security guys, some of the mortal mercenaries I'd seen in D.C.
Rick Riordan -- The Titan's Curse

mercenaries = people hired to fight for a country other than their own

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to...
Thomas Jefferson et al. -- The Declaration of Independence

mercenaries = people hired to fight for a country other than their own

Mostly I saw monsters, but there were some human mercenaries in combat fatigues and demigods in armor, too.
Rick Riordan -- The Last Olympian

mercenaries = people hired to fight for a country other than their own

Above all, he was amazed to hear me talk of a mercenary standing army, in the midst of peace, and among a free people.
Swift, Jonathan -- Gulliver's Travels
"For example, why didn't the airplane company that makes money, the mercenaries, why didn't they pay for his flight?
Tracy Kidder -- Mountains Beyond Mountains

2 —as in:
a mercenary attitude

Definition

marked by materialism or a profit orientation

mercenary = marked by materialism or a profit orientation

Other Uses (with this meaning)

This body of soldiery—which still sustains a corporate existence, and marches down from past ages with an ancient and honourable fame—was composed of no mercenary materials.
Nathaniel Hawthorne -- The Scarlet Letter

mercenary = concerned with money

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.
Mary Shelley -- Frankenstein

mercenary = working for and concerned with money

She is a cold-hearted, vain woman, who has married entirely from convenience, and though evidently unhappy in her marriage, places her disappointment not to faults of judgment, or temper, or disproportion of age, but to her being, after all, less affluent than many of her acquaintance, especially than her sister, Lady Stornaway, and is the determined supporter of everything mercenary and ambitious,
Jane Austen -- Mansfield Park

mercenary = concerned with wealth

But I do not approve of mercenary marriages.
Oscar Wilde -- The Importance of Being Earnest

mercenary = made due to considerations of wealth

My mind was never yet more mercenary.
William Shakespeare -- The Merchant of Venice

mercenary = concerned with money

She is a cold-hearted, vain woman, who has married entirely from convenience, and though evidently unhappy in her marriage, places her disappointment not to faults of judgment, or temper, or disproportion of age, but to her being, after all, less affluent than many of her acquaintance, especially than her sister, Lady Stornaway, and is the determined supporter of everything mercenary and ambitious, provided it be only mercenary and ambitious enough.
Jane Austen -- Mansfield Park

mercenary = concerned with wealth

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...
Jane Austen -- Mansfield Park

mercenary = concerned with money

...her literary dreams were as yet untainted by mercenary considerations.
Montgomery, Lucy Maud -- Anne of The Island
Who can say she has a mercenary motive in marrying him?
Collins, Wilkie -- The Haunted Hotel

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