| Learning / English Dictionary |
MERCENARY
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A person hired to fight for another country than their own
Synonyms:
mercenary; soldier of fortune
Classified under:
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)
II. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Profit oriented
Example:
a moneymaking business
Synonyms:
mercantile; mercenary; moneymaking
Classified under:
Similar:
commercial (connected with or engaged in or sponsored by or used in commerce or commercial enterprises)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Serving for wages in a foreign army
Example:
mercenary killers
Synonyms:
free-lance; freelance; mercenary
Classified under:
Similar:
paid (marked by the reception of pay)
Derivation:
mercenary (a person hired to fight for another country than their own)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Marked by materialism
Synonyms:
materialistic; mercenary; worldly-minded
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
secular; temporal; worldly (characteristic of or devoted to the temporal world as opposed to the spiritual world)
Context examples:
I may be mercenary, but I hate poverty, and don't mean to bear it a minute longer than I can help.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
They began to talk; their conversation eased me completely: frivolous, mercenary, heartless, and senseless, it was rather calculated to weary than enrage a listener.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
When he was waiting to be the object of your munificence, so freely bestowed for my sake, and when I was unhappy in the mercenary shape I was made to wear, I thought it would have become him better to have worked his own way on.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
Don't think me mercenary.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
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.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
Pray, my dear aunt, what is the difference in matrimonial affairs, between the mercenary and the prudent motive?
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
Then she tried a child's story, which she could easily have disposed of if she had not been mercenary enough to demand filthy lucre for it.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
Let it be, in justice, merely said of me, as of a gallant and eminent naval Hero, with whom I have no pretensions to cope, that what I have done, I did, in despite of mercenary and selfish objects, Much affected, but still intensely enjoying himself, Mr. Micawber folded up his letter, and handed it with a bow to my aunt, as something she might like to keep.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
Last Christmas you were afraid of his marrying me, because it would be imprudent; and now, because he is trying to get a girl with only ten thousand pounds, you want to find out that he is mercenary.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
I felt sure then that something better than what you call the 'mercenary spirit' had come over her, and a hint here and there in her letters made me suspect that love and Laurie would win the day.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
