Definition

1. Adjective:

   • Primarily concerned with making money: Describes someone who is excessively focused on financial gain, often implying a lack of principles or higher motives.
   • Hired for service in a foreign army: Describes a soldier who fights for financial payment rather than out of loyalty to a country or cause.

2. Noun:

   • A professional soldier hired to serve in a foreign army: A person who fights for a country or group other than their own in exchange for money.

Usage Examples

• Adjective:

  • His decision to support the policy seemed purely mercenary, driven by the promised financial rewards.
  • The regime was defended by mercenary troops from various countries.

• Noun:

  • The warlord employed mercenaries to bolster his forces.
  • Historically, mercenaries have played a significant role in many European wars.

Advanced Usage

• "mercenary motives/interests": Describes actions or decisions motivated solely by the desire for financial profit.

  • The merger was driven by mercenary interests, with little regard for the employees.

• "mercenary army/force": Refers to a military unit composed of paid soldiers from foreign countries.

  • The rebellion was crushed by the king's mercenary army.

Variants and Related Words

• Mercenariness (n, rare): The quality or state of being mercenary.
  • The mercenariness of his character made him untrustworthy.

Synonyms

• Adjective (profit-oriented): Greedy, acquisitive, venal, materialistic.
• Noun (hired soldier): Soldier of fortune, hired gun, freelance soldier.

Related Phrases

• "a mercenary war": A conflict fought largely by paid foreign soldiers.
  • The conflict degenerated into a costly mercenary war.

Related Idioms

• "To have a mercenary heart": To be characteristically motivated by money.
  • You can't trust him in negotiations; he has a mercenary heart.

Adjective

1. profit oriented
   • a commercial book
   • preached a mercantile and militant patriotism- John Buchan
   • a mercenary enterprise
   • a moneymaking business
2. serving for wages in a foreign army
   • mercenary killers
3. marked by materialism

Noun

1. a person hired to fight for another country than their own