What's the difference between assassin and mercenary?

Assassin


Definition:

  • (n.) One who kills, or attempts to kill, by surprise or secret assault; one who treacherously murders any one unprepared for defense.
  • (v. t.) To assassinate.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) She was not aware that it was an assassination attempt by alleged foreign agents.” If at least one of the women thought the killing was part of an elaborate prank, it might explain the “LOL” message emblazoned in large letters one of the killers t-shirts.
  • (2) She read geography at Oxford, where Benazir Bhutto (a future prime minister of Pakistan, assassinated in 2007) introduced May to her future husband, Philip May: "I hate to say this, but it was at an Oxford University Conservative Association disco… this is wild stuff.
  • (3) When Martin Luther King was assassinated, they sent state troopers to my high school in east St Louis.
  • (4) Contrary to the claims of some commentators, such as Steve Vladeck , it is impossible to argue reasonably that the memo imposed a requirement of "infeasibility of capture" on Obama's assassination power.
  • (5) He was indicted on weapons charges and accused of plotting robberies and the assassination of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s founder.
  • (6) Sadly, the Jewish fanatic who assassinated Rabin in 1995 achieved his broader aim of derailing the peace train.
  • (7) The 25-year-old student is adamant that her mother, Berta Cáceres Flores, will not become just one more Honduran environmental activist whose work was cut short by their assassination.
  • (8) As well as George Dyer, there was the murderer Perry Smith in the Truman Capote story Infamous, the hot-headed mobster child-killer in Road To Perdition, the brooding Ted Hughes in Gwyneth Paltrow’s Sylvia biopic and a belligerent Mossad assassin in Steven Spielberg’s Munich.
  • (9) Compaoré was 36 when he seized power in a coup in which Thomas Sankara, his former friend and one of Africa’s most revered leaders, was ousted and assassinated.
  • (10) The surprise return of Saleh last month, after recovering in Saudi Arabia from an assassination attempt, has plunged the country into deeper uncertainty and sharpened the differences between pro- and anti-government camps.
  • (11) The attacks had clear echoes of the unsolved assassination in January this year of one of their colleagues, particle physicist Masoud Alimohammadi.
  • (12) The exposure of unsavoury candidates, allegations of racism and attempts at character assassination of Nigel Farage can be traced to Lynton Crosby , the architect of Conservative strategy who is a veteran of battles with the far-right Pauline Hanson in Australia.
  • (13) Its willingness to ignore diplomatic convention and use its Kuala Lumpur embassy to conduct an extraterritorial assassination will be seen as setting a dire precedent that cannot be allowed to stand.
  • (14) • An assassination attempt against Gennady Kernes, the wealthy mayor of Kharkiv, left him in "extremely serious but stable condition" in the hospital.
  • (15) I was told the Guardian had been too negative about Playboy in the past, and that they were also wary after a recent "trashing in the Sunday Times magazine – where Mr Hefner underwent a complete character assassination".
  • (16) Along with other recent events elsewhere in Guerrero – including the assassination of a party political boss in a well-known restaurant in Acapulco on Sunday and the murder of five people in one of the city’s poor barrios on Monday – the impression is growing that the state, long in a state of conflict, is being pushed over the edge.
  • (17) It explains the failure to unearth evidence of assassination: because state-appointed aviation experts conducted the investigation, their conclusion that it had been an accident proves that the state remains in the hands of the perpetrators (Law and Justice defence minister Antoni Macierewicz described their investigation as the greatest cover-up “in the history of the world”).
  • (18) Two years later Rabin was assassinated by a militant Israeli opponent of the peace process.
  • (19) The future James I resorted to them on several occasions in Scotland: in 1600, for instance, he had two alleged assassins pickled in whisky, vinegar and allspice, put on trial, and then mutilated.
  • (20) But these are only the latest of the clashes and atrocities that have engulfed Libya since Nato's "liberation": including bombings, assassinations, the kidnapping of the prime minister, the seizure of oil terminals by warlords, the explusion of 40,000 mainly black Libyans from their homes, and the killing of 46 protesters on the streets of Tripoli in one incident — ignored by the states that supposedly went to war to protect civilians.

Mercenary


Definition:

  • (a.) Acting for reward; serving for pay; paid; hired; hireling; venal; as, mercenary soldiers.
  • (a.) Hence: Moved by considerations of pay or profit; greedy of gain; sordid; selfish.
  • (n.) One who is hired; a hireling; especially, a soldier hired into foreign service.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Donald Trump’s campaign chairman took a “mercenary” approach to lobbying the US government on behalf of international clients accused of killings, rapes and other atrocities, according to one of his former colleagues.
  • (2) Other South African reports have suggested the mercenaries were paid $15,000 each.
  • (3) Deplores the continuing flows of mercenaries into the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya and calls upon all Member States to comply strictly with their obligations under paragraph 9 of resolution 1970 (2011) to prevent the provision of armed mercenary personnel to the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya; Ban on flights 17.
  • (4) Two of his top aides, Conor Cruise O'Brien and George Ivan Smith, both became convinced that the secretary general had been shot down by mercenaries working for European industrialists in Katanga.
  • (5) The CAR's ousted president, Francois Bozize, a Christian, fled the capital in March as the Seleka, including mercenaries from Chad and Sudan, overran the city.
  • (6) And he kept his mercenaries and tortured people inside these walls," said Tarek Saleh, a 25-year-old revolutionary.
  • (7) Unclothed female bodies offer a route up the ladder, just as armed male bodies do for the mercenary "sellswords", who seek their fortune by fighting.
  • (8) Allies can now expect to pay for their security umbrella, as the US military effectively turns into a mercenary force.
  • (9) There have been further protests in Iran in support of the mainly Shia Bahraini opposition, and Tehran recently warned Pakistan against sending any more "mercenaries" to join the crackdown.
  • (10) Yet some have dismissed the vote as irrelevant to Gaddafi and his remaining commanders, or argued that the resolution itself prevents any investigation into non-Libyan "mercenaries" who some allege have been involved in the killings.
  • (11) They say 10 generals who led the rebellion came from Chad, although they describe them as mercenaries rather than Chadian army officers.
  • (12) Ocampo suggested Saif could be travelling with the protection of mercenaries who are preparing to fly him to an unidentified African state that does not co-operate with the ICC and would be unlikely to extradite him.
  • (13) Bahrainis often complain that the riot police and special forces do not speak the local dialect, or in the case of Baluchis from Pakistan, do not speak Arabic at all and are reviled as mercenaries.
  • (14) In a statement on Friday, Russia's defence ministry said the Ukrainian military operation was launching rocket strikes on protesters, accusing it of employing ultra-nationalists from the group Right Sector and “English-speaking foreigners” it suggested were American mercenaries.
  • (15) Oh, and football clubs – two of them contesting the Champions League final in London next week – built on youth policy, supporter ownership and long-term strategy, not mercenary millionaires, foreign oligarchs and instant gratification.
  • (16) Later the kidnappers were described as "Chechen mercenaries" fighting with Jabhat al-Nusra, an extreme Islamist group that has links with al-Qaida.
  • (17) Fox, speaking on the steps of the Pentagon after meeting Gates, said: "We have seen significant progress made in the last 72 hours with Gaddafi's forces losing their grip on Misrata and we have received reports of under-age soldiers and foreign mercenaries being captured – this underlines the regimes inability to rely on its own security forces.
  • (18) The secretary-general, Dag Hammarskjöld , focused on finding a political solution for the first few months, but by September, he and his aides were convinced that western interests and mercenaries in Katanga were preventing a settlement, and authorised a UN military offensive there, codenamed Operation Morthor.
  • (19) It is thought the people in the portraits were the direct descendents of the original settlers in the Fayum, who were Greek mercenary soldiers who fought for the Ptolomies.
  • (20) Janjaweed forces that committed genocide in Darfur were frequently linked to Gaddafi: many had once been Islamic Legion members, the rag-tag mercenary army he had created to fulfil his vision of a pan-Arabic band across north Africa.