mercenary

Definition

One motivated by gain, especially monetary.

Etymology

From Middle English mercenarye (“someone paid to work, hireling”), from Latin mercēnārius (“hired for money”), from mercēs (“reward, wages, price”).

Example Sentences

• "J. Argyrofylus, a mercenary Greek, who came to teach school in Italy, after the sacking of Constantinople by the Turks, used to maintain that Cicero understood neither Philosophy nor Greek"
• "Such a man emphatically deserves the name of fortune-hunter—a wretch as detestable in society, as destructive of domestic happiness! And if, when marriages are consummated on such plans, there be afterwards between the parties the least appearance of regard, and the common forms of decorum, it is more than can reasonably be expected, and infinitely more than such mercenaries deserve."
• "HOSPITAL NUNS./ Louis XVI. wishing to improve the state of the hospitals in France, sent a member of the Academy of Sciences to England, to enquire into the manner in which such establishments were conducted there. The commissioner praised them; but remarked, that two things were wanting; the zeal of the French parochial clergy, and the charity of the hospital nuns. "We have found, by sorrowful experience," said M. Portalis, that mercenaries, without any motive of feeling to attach them constantly to their duty, can never supply the place of persons animated by a spirit of religion,"