(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.